He has only one master in the art of self-fattening. This is one whose migration synchronizes with his, one who is likewise an enthusiastic insect-eater: the Bush-pipit, as the nomenclators so absurdly call him, whereas the dullest of our shepherds never hesitates to [[225]]speak of him as the Grasset, the champion fat bird. The name in itself fully describes his leading characteristic. No other achieves such a degree of obesity. A moment comes when, laden with pads of fat up to its wings, its neck and the back of its head, the bird looks like a little pat of butter. The poor thing can hardly flutter from one mulberry-tree to the next, where it stops to pant in the thick leafage, half choked with melting fat, a martyr to its passion for Weevils.
October brings us the slender White Wagtail, half pearly grey, half white, with a large black-velvet chest-protector. The graceful little bird, trotting along and cocking up its tail, follows the ploughman almost under the horses’ feet and picks the grubs in the new-turned furrow. About the same time the Skylark arrives, first in little companies sent out as scouting-parties, next in countless battalions, which take possession of the cornfields and fallow land, with their plentiful setaria-seeds, the bird’s usual fare. Then, in the plain, amid the universal glitter of dewdrops and rime-crystals hanging from every blade of grass, the treacherous mirror shoots forth its intermittent flashes in the rays of the morning sun; then the little Owl, released by the hunter’s hand, makes his short flight, alights, starts up again convulsively, [[226]]rolling frightened eyes; and the Lark arrives, dipping on the wing, curious to obtain a closer view of the bright apparatus or the grotesque bird. He is there, in front of you, a dozen yards away, with feet pendant and wings outspread like the Dove in a sacred picture. Now then: take aim and fire! I wish my readers the excitement of this fascinating sport.
With the Skylark, often in the same companies, comes the Titlark, commonly called the Sisi. Here again an onomatopœia gives us the bird’s little call-note. None goes with greater fury for the Owl, round whom he manœuvres and hovers constantly. But we will not continue the list of the birds of passage that visit us. Most of them make but a short halt here; they stay for a few weeks, attracted by the abundance of food, especially of insects; then, plump and strong, they pursue their southward journey. Others, fewer these, take up their winter quarters in our plains, where snow is very rare and where thousands of little seeds lie exposed on the ground, even in the depth of winter. One of these is the Skylark, who gives his attention to the corn-fields and fallows; another is the Titlark, who prefers the lucern-fields and meadows.
The Skylark, so common in almost every part of France, does not nest in the Vaucluse plains, [[227]]where his place is taken by the Crested Lark, that frequenter of the broad highway, the roadmender’s friend. But one need not go far north to find the favourite spots for the Skylark’s broods: the next department, the Drôme, is rich in his nests. It is very probable therefore that, out of the numbers of Skylarks that come to take possession of our plains for the whole of autumn and winter, there are many that travel no farther than the Drôme. They have only to migrate to the next department to find plains free from snow and a steady supply of tiny seeds. A like migration to a short distance seems to me to have caused the crowd of Ammophilæ which I surprised near the top of Mont Ventoux. I have shown that this Wasp spends the winter in the perfect insect state, hidden in some shelter and waiting until April to make her nest. She also, like the Skylark, must take her precautions against the frosty season. Though she need not fear the lack of food, being capable of fasting until the return of the flowers, she must at least, delicate creature that she is, guard against the fatal attacks of the cold. She will therefore flee snowy country, the districts where the ground freezes to a great depth; she will assemble in a migratory caravan, after the manner of the birds, and, crossing hill and dale, will select a home in old walls and [[228]]sandy banks warmed by the southern sun. Then, when the cold is past, all or part of the troop will return to the place whence they came. This would explain the Ventoux band of Ammophilæ. It was a travelling tribe which, coming from the cold uplands of the Drôme and descending into the warm plains beloved of the olive-tree, had crossed the wide, deep valley of the Toulourenc and, when surprised by the rain, had called a halt on the mountain-ridge. Apparently, therefore, the Hairy Ammophila has to migrate in order to escape the cold of winter. At the time when the little birds of passage start their procession of caravans, she too journeys from a colder to a warmer neighbourhood. She has but to cross a few valleys and a few mountains to find the climate which she wants.
I have two other instances of extraordinary gatherings of insects at great heights. In October I have found the chapel at the summit of Mont Ventoux covered with Coccinella septempunctata, the Seven-spot Ladybird. The insects clinging to the stone of both the roof and walls were packed so close together that the rude edifice looked, from a little way off, like a piece of coral-work. I should not care to guess the myriad numbers of the Ladybirds collected there. Those Aphis-eaters had certainly not [[229]]been attracted by the hope of food to the top of the Ventoux, some 6000 feet above the level of the sea. Vegetation is too scanty up there; and no Plant-louse ever ventured so high.
On another occasion, in June, on the tableland of Saint-Amans, a neighbour of the Ventoux, at a height of 2400 feet, I witnessed a similar gathering, only much less numerous. At the most prominent part of the plateau, on the edge of a bluff of perpendicular rocks, stands a cross with a pedestal of hewn stone. On each face of this pedestal and on the rocks supporting it, the same Beetles, the Seven-spot Ladybirds of the Ventoux, had gathered in their legions. The insects were mostly stationary; but, wherever the sun beat at all fiercely, there was a continual exchange between the newcomers, anxious to find room, and the old occupants of the wayside cross, who took to their wings only to return after a short flight.
Nothing here, any more than on the summit of the Ventoux, was able to tell me the cause of these strange meetings on arid spots, containing no Plant-lice and possessing no attraction for Ladybirds; nothing suggested the secret of these crowded gatherings on masonry situated at a great height. Were these again instances of entomological migration? Were they general musterings, similar to that of the [[230]]Swallows on the day before their common departure? Were they meeting-places whence the swarm of Ladybirds was to make for some district richer in edibles? It is possible, but it is also very extraordinary. The Ladybird has rarely been noted as a devotee of travel. She seems to us a very stay-at-home creature when we see her butchering the Green-fly on our rose-trees and the Black-fly on our beans; and yet, with her short wings, she holds plenary assemblies, in immense numbers, on the summit of Mont Ventoux, where the Martin himself ascends only at moments of violent energy. Why these meetings at such altitudes? What can be the reason of this predilection for blocks of masonry? [[231]]