VI. Now that his beautiful work was finished, Gerald could not bear to be long away from it. It attracted him magnetically; and while his heart sang to him a song of triumph he returned from his walk, almost running, to his studio. There was yet a glimpse of daylight by which he might see the fair god of his handiwork. He gave a glad call to his mother, as the studio door yielded to his hand, showing that she was still there. On the threshold his word died on his lips unfinished. His feet froze to the ground. His heart stood still in the revulsion of feeling. He stared wildly through the dimness of the studio. His lips opened with uncertain sounds. Then he went feebly forward. The beautiful form which he had left so nobly posed, now lay a shattered ghost upon the floor. Upon the white heap as ghostly and unlifelike-lay the black-draped figure of his mother prone, her head pillowed on the clay. "My God!" Gerald exclaimed, and for a full minute stood helpless stunned. Then the need of action roused him. He approached his mother, but she neither spoke nor moved. She was deeply unconscious. It was his professional duty to humor people. "What is it, then?" Gerald asked. "I should say it was prolonged mental strain culminating in a crisis," the doctor said; "that is, unless you want it in Latin.” "No, thanks, that will do. I wonder where it struck her." For nearly a week Mrs. Palgrave lay between coma and delirium, but the temperature did not rise to a great height. At length Gerald had the joy of seeing her look forth from her pillow with serene intelligence in her dark eyes. All day she said very little, but lay thinking, as it seemed as though some trouble still weighed upon her. In the evening, when she and Gerald were alone together, she stretched out her poor, thin hand to him. "Tell me," she said, "is it true, or is it all an ugly dream?" "What, mother?" "Yes, "What I have dreamed about your statue that that it is broken." Gerald paused a moment. mother,' ," he then said. "By bad luck it is true. It fell on you as you were looking at it, and brought you to the ground. Don't you remember? I did not support it properly." Gerald rushed from the studio for "Oh, yes," she said, with a cry of help. pain in her voice. "It is true, then. When he had borne a hand in carry-Oh ! ” She groaned, and turned her ing his mother home, and was await- head down on the pillow from him. ing, down-stairs, the doctor's verdict," But no, Gerald," she resumed, in a he mused or walked up and down the voice firm with purpose. "You are little room by intervals. A fever of mental and physical restlessness pursued him. "It is grave, but she will recover,' the doctor said, when he came down. "Where did it strike her?" Gerald asked. "Strike her! Nothing struck her." "Yes, it did," Gerald declared fiercely. "The statue fell on her and carried her down with it." "She has suffered no serious blow that I can discover," the doctor peated. "It must have been a heavy blow it was a big thing." wrong. It did not fall on me." "Yes it did," he said quickly and vehemently. It fell on you as you were looking at it. We know it did George Heaton and I." "No, my boy, there you are wrong, both of you. It did not fall on me. I pushed it-pushed, dragged, ever so hard, to pull it down." "Mother! " There was a dead pause; the mother, with her head down on the pillow, lisre-tening agonizedly for her son's verdict on her sin the son wandering in search of charity among his lost faiths. "I know," he said quickly; then, The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "You destroyed it. Yes, you were quite right, because it was not good; as Flaubert did to the early work of Bal zac. He listened with intense eagerness for an affirmation. But a negative came, with a pitiful cry from the poor, sinful woman on the bed. VII. MORE than a month elapsed before Mrs. Palgrave was able to leave her room, and many months before she had altogether recovered from her nervous crisis. During this while Gerald was unremitting in his kind tenderness "No, no, no, my dear, generous and care. It was only on his mother's boy," she cried; "you cannot spare earnest entreaty that he could be preme. It was I who dragged down your vailed on to spend a few hours of each beautiful conception and destroyed it. day in the studio. Mrs. Palgrave, so I could not bear it. Oh, Gerald," and soon as she was able to make the necas she spoke the tears came cours-essary arrangements, dismissed her ing off her face like rain "oh, Ger- workmen and shut up her studio altoald, if you knew how I had fought gether, declaring that she did not mean you would pity me. But no-I ought to touch clay again. Nor, though both to ask no pity. I deserve none. For Gerald and George Heaton endeavored years I have been trying to fight out of my heart the jealousy of this great genius which God has given you. For that has always been the cross of my life -since I took up the modelling that I could do nothing great; and here you Oh, Gerald and I could not bear it. The life you had created was so good, so glorious, I could not bear it. I murdered it. Oh, God forgive me, forgive me, forgive me!" "Mother, mother, mother!" Gerald cried, with a world of pity and love. 'Oh, don't, don't, don't, please. I forgive you, dearest, if there is anything to forgive. George Heaton is right. I should have been dissatisfied, and hated the thing long ago if it had lived." "Gerald," said his mother, "please don't say any more. You will kill me if you are so generous. Even at the first, when George said you had genius, I could not bear you to learn, but I fought down my jealousy so far as to ask him to see about your learning. But when I saw the beautiful thing, and how good it was, then I could not endure it, and a fearful impulse took me. Oh, Gerald !" to combat her decision, could they As the weeks went on, and Mrs. Then he hurried home along the streets, seeing nothing but the splendid clay which he had made live, brushing against passers-by and begging no pardons, till he came to his mother's house and said, "It is finished, mother-at last. Here is the key. Will you go and see it? I must go for a walk." 4299 "Gerald, Gerald, you are too good to me you are too good." Then a blinding mist came over her eyes as she threw her arms about his neck and rained on him her kisses and her blessings. was when any in her hearing spoke of her son having received from her a portion of his inspiration in his art, or in any way suggested a comparison between his genius and her own. From The Nineteenth Century. THE LIVES AND LOVES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS.1 THE more intimately we become acquainted with that vast realm the animal kingdom, the more we are Gerald went for a long, long walk. amazed and delighted by the wonderful variety and beauty of its countless eleHis excitement was less delirious, more ments; and at the same time, amidst assured of success, than at the completion of his first great work. He the infinite diversity of form, structure, and modes of life which distinguish the could bear to be away from it a while, and he would do nothing to make his several divisions of that kingdom, it is mother think that he had a suspicion very difficult, if not impossible, to deof her. At length he turned home-termine which of them offers to the wards, but, passing the studio, thought he would look in, on the chance that she had not yet left it. The door was unlocked. Again, as after the completion of his first work, ટી. cry broke from him as he stood on the threshold, but a cry of most different tenor. The noble figure that he had created rose aloft in the studio, with the afternoon summer sun bearing full upon it, and before it his mother knelt, with rapt eyes, as if to the image of a god. 66 Why, mother!" he exclaimed. "My boy," she answered, rising from her knees, "I was thanking God for his great gift to you of your genius, and for his great gift to me of you." Gerald was too moved to speak. "But you have made a better thing in God's eyes than that statue. You have made, I hope and trust, a good woman of one who was a very jealous, selfish, wicked one!" student material at once the most inter- Emerson says "all mankind loves a lover," and probably no phase in the lives of the birds to which we are about to advert is at once so curious, so interesting, and so full of instruction conaud cerning their nature and instincts, especially so abounding with evidence of the large amount of human nature Mrs. Palgrave held to her determination never again to touch clay. People praised her as a woman whose own talent and power were sacrificed to the genius of her son. Others, less kindly, said that her nature had lost something of its fire; but if ever, in these latter days, that quick temper to which she had been prone was seen to glow, itton, 1892. 1 Life Histories of North American Birds, with special reference to their Breeding, Habits, and Eggs. With twelve lithographic plates. By Charles Bendire, Captain United States Army (retired). Honorary Curator of the Department of logy, United States National Museum, Member of the American Ornithologists' Union. Washing in them, as is that of their courtship | centre feathers do not move, but each and family life. side expands and contracts alternately movement of the tail produces a peculiar rustling like that of silk, and his attitude gives him a very dignified and even conceited air. He tries to attract attention in every possible way-by flying from the ground upon a perch and back again, making all the noise he can in doing so. Often, seemingly to increase the noise, he thumps some hard substance with his bill. Sometimes he sits with his breast nearly touching the earth, his feathers erect; meanwhile he makes a peculiar nodding and circular motion of the head from side to side, and remains in this position two or three minutes at a time. He is a most beautiful bird, and, not unlike some human beauties, shows by some of his actions that he is perfectly well aware of the fact. There are no less than thirty-eight with each step as the bird walks. This kinds of gallinaceous birds inhabiting North America, and though the habits of the different species, including, of course, the several ways in which the males comport themselves during their courtship, present a general resemblance, they also present considerable differences. In the very early spring - the latter part of February, often in northern latitudes before the snow has disappeared the cock birds begin to utter their love calls, and their plumage becomes gradually developed into great fulness and beauty. The males are generally furnished with two very peculiar appendages called air sacs peculiar in respect both to their appearance and function. There is one, resembling the half of an orange, on each side of the upper part of the neck. These sacs are connected with the air passages of the lungs, and can be distended with air at the will of the bird.marks: Above these sacs on either side, just where the head joins the neck, are a few feathers which ordinarily lie backward on the neck, but which, when the bird is excited, he can turn straight forward. more The cock's love calls are soon followed by demonstrations of a decisive and often very remarkable character. These are chiefly of three kinds, named respectively "strutting," "drumming," and "dancing." Strutting may be described as a sort of promenade during which the cock birds display themselves in their fresh spring plumage to the hens in order to excite their admiration and love. Strutting begins usually in March. The attitude and conduct of the strutter during his performance are very striking. His tail becomes almost erect, his wings are slightly raised from the body and a little drooped, the head is elevated, the feathers of the head and throat are raised, and the red comb over each is enlarged until the two nearly meet over the top of the head. While the bird is strutting the expanded tail is moved from side to side. The two eye In his account of Gambell's partridge, Mr. Cobb, of Albuquerque, re It is a pleasing and interesting sight to watch the male courting his mate, uttering at the same time low cooing notes, and strutting around the coy female in the most stately manner possible, bowing his head and making his obeisance to her. handsome bird at all times, he certainly looks his best during this love-making period. While a The entertainment called drumming is seldom performed alone, but, associated with strutting, is commonly relied on by the cock bird to induce the hen whose affection he is intent on gaining to accept his proposals. The curious antics of the spruce partridge are thus described by an old backwoodsman, Mr. James Langley: After strutting back and forth for a few minutes, the male flew straight up, as high as the surrounding trees, about fourteen feet; there he remained stationary an instant, and while maintaining himself in the air did the drumming with the wings, and meanwhile he dropped down slowly to the spot from which he started. He repeated the performance over and over again. The noise produced by the drumming is said to resemble that of distant thun The cock performs its drumming upon the trunk of a standing tree of rather small size, preferably one that is inclined from the perpendicular, and in the following manner commencing near the base of the tree selected, the bird flutters upwards with somewhat slow progress, but rapidly beating wings, which produce the drumming sound. Having then ascended fifteen or twenty feet, it glides quietly on wing to the ground and repeats the manœuvre. Favorite places are resorted to habitually, and these "drumming-trees" are well known to observant woodsmen. I have seen one that was so well worn upon the bark as to lead to the belief that it had been used for this purpose for many years. be The drumming-place is resorted to by the male from year to year. It may a log, a rock, an old stump, or, when such are not available, a small hillock is made to answer the purpose equally well. The drumming of the ruffed grouse is described by Mr. Manly Hardy, of Brewer, Maine, as follows: — When about to drum he erects his neck feathers, spreads his tail, and with drooping wings steps with a jerking motion along the log for some distance each way from his drumming-place, walking back and forth several times and looking sharply in every direction; then, standing crosswise, he stretches himself to his fullest height, and delivers the blows with his wings fully upon his sides, his wings being several inches clear from the log. After drumming he settles quietly down into a sitting posture, and remains listening for five or ten minutes, when, if no cause for alarm is discovered, he repeats the process. 66 "" Drumming cannot be considered a love note exclusively, for, as remarked by Captain Bendire, it may be heard in almost every month of the year, and sometimes in the night as well as in the daytime; yet it must undoubtedly have some attraction for the hen. It may be performed as a sign of bodily vigor and to notify her of his whereabouts. Occasionally it causes a jealous rival to put in an appearance also, when a rough-and-tumble fight ensues. The hen is seldom seen near the drumming-place. The drumming of the ruffed grouse has often been described, and many different theories have been advanced as to how the sound is produced. It is generally conceded now by most naturalists, including such well-known ornithologists as Brewster, Merriam, and Henshaw, that the sound is produced by the outspread wings of the birds being brought suddenly downward against the air without striking anything. Adverting to the willow ptarmigan, whose courting performance resembles somewhat that of drumming, Mr. M. L. Turner, in his paper on the birds of Labrador and Ungava, says : Early in April a male selects a favorite tract of territory for the location of the nest, and endeavors to induce a female to resort to that place. He usually selects the highest portion of the tract, whence he launches into the air, uttering a barking sound of nearly a dozen separate notes; thence sails or flutters in a circle to alight at the place whence he started, or to alight on another high place, from whence he repeats the act while flying to his former place. Immediately on alighting, he utters several times a sound like the Indian word 66 chu-xwan" (what is it?), and in the course of a few minutes again launches into the air. This performance continues until nearly eleven o'clock, and, after remaining quiet until about three o'clock, he résumes it, though with less vigor than in the morning. In the course of a few days a female may be found in the vicinity. The actions of the male are then redoubled, and woe be to any bird of his kind which attempts even to cross his chosen locality. As human beings, by meeting at balls and parties, very often take the preliminary step in the direction of courtship, so many of the birds in question hold their meetings seemingly for the same reason and with like results. The quail, generally known as the "prairie chicken," is especially remarkable in this respect. In the early part of each year a number of these birds hold what may be called their spring assemblies, at which are combined dancing promenades, "strutting," and that peculiar kind of music called drumming "' already mentioned. After the disappearance of the snow, and the coming of the warmer weath |