The bird, however hard the frost may be, flies briskly to his customary roosting-place, and, with beak tucked into his wing, falls asleep. He has no apprehensions; only the hot blood grows colder and colder, the pulse feebler as he sleeps, and at midnight, or in the early morning, he drops from his perch—dead.
Yesterday he lived and moved, responsive to a thousand external influences, reflecting earth and sky in his small brilliant brain as in a looking-glass; also he had a various language, the inherited knowledge of his race, and the faculty of flight, by means of which he could shoot, meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to place; and with it he was able to drop himself plumb down from the tallest tree-lop, or out of the void air, on to a slender spray, and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble.
Now, on this morning, he lies stiff and motionless; so easy and swift is the passage from life to death in wild nature! But he was never miserable.