And at a moment like this, as if to heighten the effect, over there the voice of the mightiest bird that the earth bears in this our day sounds forth. I hear in the distance the ringing cry of a hen-ostrich, and I listen to it with attention strained to the highest point. [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ NESTS OF WEAVER-BIRDS ON THE BOUGHS OF AN ACACIA.] The strange duet has now long died away. But it often comes up to me again in the midst of the movement of civilised life and takes me back on the wings of fancy to the glorious beauty of the wilderness. But that uncouth tropical singer is not really needed to conjure up this frame of mind. A little unseen _lark_, all by itself, can evoke for me the charm of the solitudes of Nyíka as with a magic wand. How this comes to pass, I will tell the reader. We must make a long tour. Now we are in the north, in our native country, in the midst of the spring, amongst spreading fields of our German homeland. The song of the lark fills the air, and our heart expands to its music. We go out upon the open moor. We hear a trilling and quavering of another kind, with a strangely sweet touch of sadness in it, especially at night--the song of the woodlark. But now let the reader follow me to the little island of Heligoland. In the glare from the lighthouse, that sends afar its rays,--in this case rays that bring destruction,--countless numbers of larks flutter and wheel about, bewildered in the darkness of the autumn night, and full of anxiety and fear. On a dark, rainy October night thousands of them fall victims to the death that lies waiting in ambush for them below this tower raised by the hand of man. Their little wings have brought them safe over the ocean to the small island. But there one hears no rejoicing song, No! there resounds only something like an agonised cry for help from weak creatures in the direst peril of death. Millions of larks fly thus each year southwards and northwards, obedient to that mysterious migratory impulse that guides them on their way. The song of the lark and the cry of the lark are very different things. To those who know them they mean a song of happy springtime, and a cry for help in the night of death. How comes it that I thus speak of, and have to think of, sounds uttered by the birds here at home? Simply because over there, in other lands, my fancy so often and so readily imagined the flying bird to be a messenger,--a courier for thoughts of home,--and connected such wishes and longings with its appearance and disappearance.