Sept haï-kaïs "La petite tortue ...", is only seventeen measures long—the number of syllables in a Japanese haiku. Alexis Roland-Manuel remarked on this "mélodie": "Do not let your modesty make you forget a certain fable by La Fontaine. You hurry slowly, perhaps, but none of your steps are wasted. How many hares envy you!" The harmony is pricked with fine, expressive dissonances. For the third "mélodie", "Le coq ...", the instruments "peck" the melody with appoggiaturas in a spirit similar to that in Ravel's "Histoires naturelles" (1906). According to Andrieu, "Maurice Delage's composition is simple and refined; the composer stays ever attentive
Japanese bush warbler has led to the birds being kept as cage birds. Robert Young records that to encourage singing the cages of kept birds were covered with a wooden box with a small paper window that allowed only subdued light in. Along with the return of the barn swallow the bush warbler's call is viewed by Japanese as a herald of springtime. It is one of the favorite motifs of Japanese poetry, featured in many poems including those in "Man'yōshū" or "Kokin Wakashū". In haiku and renga, "uguisu" is one of the kigo which signify the early spring. In poetry the bird