. The bird . ^, fresh as the dawn, pure and gleeful as a childish heart !That powerful and sonorous voice is the reapers signal. We muststart, says the father; do you not hear the lark? She follows,them, and bids them have courage ; in the hot sunny hours invitesthem to slumber, and drives away tlie insects. Upon the bent headof the young girl half awakened she pours her floods of harmony. No throat, says Toussenel, can contend with that of the larkin richness and variety of song, compass and velvetiness of timbre,duration and range of sound, suppleness and indefatigability of thevocal chords.
. The bird . ^, fresh as the dawn, pure and gleeful as a childish heart !That powerful and sonorous voice is the reapers signal. We muststart, says the father; do you not hear the lark? She follows,them, and bids them have courage ; in the hot sunny hours invitesthem to slumber, and drives away tlie insects. Upon the bent headof the young girl half awakened she pours her floods of harmony. No throat, says Toussenel, can contend with that of the larkin richness and variety of song, compass and velvetiness of timbre,duration and range of sound, suppleness and indefatigability of thevocal chords. The lark sings for a whole hour without half a secondspause, rising vertically in the air to the height of a thousand yards,and stretching fiom side to side in the realm of clouds to gain a yetloftier elevation, without losing one of its notes in this immense flight. What nio-htingale could do as much ? 240 THE This hymn of light is a benefit bestowed on the world, and youwill meet with it in every country which the sun illuminates. Thereare as many different species of larks as there are different countries :wood-larks, field-larks, larks of the thickets, of the marshes, the larksof the Crau de Provence, larks of the chalky soil of Champagne, larksof the northern lands in both hemispheres; you will find them, more-over, in the salt steppes, in the plains of Tartary withered by thenorth wind. Presei-ving reclamation of kindly nature ; tender con-solations of the love of God ! THE SONG. 241 But autumn has arrived. Wliile the lark gathers behind the plouo-hthe harvest of insects, the guests of the northern countries come tovisit us : the thrush, punctual to our vintage-time; and, hauo-htyunder his crown, the wren, the imperceptible King of the Norway, at the season of fogs, he comes, and, under a giganticfir-tree, the little magician sings his mysterious song, until the extremecold
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