At dusk he grew restless. He stood up on his feet, stretched his neck, opened wide his round eyes, spread out his wings, beating the air with them: then closed them again. Curling up into a ball, drawing his head into his shoulders and blinking, he croaked: "Oo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" The rueful cry scared the forest denizens. And the echo in the ravine answered back: "Oo-oo..." The twilight was green, merging into blue. The sky was spangled with great glowing stars. The pine-trees exhaled an oily odour. In the night-frost, the brook at the bottom of the ravine grew still. Somewhere, caught in its current, birds were crying. Yet all was in a state of watchful calm. When at length the night set in, the male stealthily and guiltily approached the female in the nest, cautiously spreading his big, awkward feet, which were so clumsy on the ground . . . A great and beautiful passion urged him to the side of his mate. He perched beside her, smoothing her feathers with his bill, still with that droll absurd look of guilt. The female responded to his caresses; she was very soft and tender; but behind this tenderness could be detected her great strength and power over the male: perhaps she realized it herself. In the language of instinct, she said to her mate: "Yes, you may." The male succumbed to his passion, and she yielded to him. V It was thus for a week or ten days. Then at last, when the male came to her one night-time, she said: "No! Enough!" She spoke instinctively, for another time had come--the time for the birth of her children. The male-bird, abashed, as though conscience-stricken at not having divined the bidding of his mate earlier, went away from her only to return at the end of a year. VI From Spring-time, all through the Summer until September, the male and female were absorbed in the great, beautiful, indispensable task of breeding their young. In September the fledgelings took wing. The Spring and Summer developed in their multi-coloured glory: they burned with fiery splendour; the pine-trees glowed with a resinous phosphorescence. There was the fragrance of wormwood. Chicory, blue- bells, buttercups, milfoil, and cowslip blossomed and faded; prickly thistles abounded. In May the nights were deeply blue. In June they were pale green. The dawn broke in a blood-red flare like a great conflagration, and at night pale silvery mists moved along the bottom of the ravine, washing the tops of the pines. At first the nest contained five grey eggs with green speckles. Then came the little birds, big-headed, with disproportionately large yellow mouths, their bodies covered with down. They chirruped plaintively, stretching their long necks out from the nest, and they ate voraciously. They flew in June, though as yet clumsily, piping, and awkwardly fluttering their immature wings. The female was with them all the time, ruffling her feathers, solicitous and petulant.