FASHIONS TOLL 73 



simple : I had foolishly allowed the cartridge 

 to lie for a long time in the sun-heated chamber 

 of the rifle; consequently the powder (one of 

 the then new, smokeless varieties) had become 

 too energetic. There was no violent recoil 

 from the second shot. 



I sprang from the scherm and ran to my 

 quarry. There he lay, breast downward, his 

 long neck bent and his head concealed under 

 the black, bulky body. The wings were ex- 

 panded, with the snowy plumes outspread, fan- 

 like, on each side. The bird was stone dead, 

 for the bullet struck the base of the spinal 

 column and shattered it throughout the whole 

 length. No swifter death could have been 

 devised. 



Carefully, one by one, I plucked out the 

 lovely plumes. They were surely the fairest 

 and purest ornaments ever devised by that in- 

 fluence which men, when the world was young, 

 personified and worshipped as the Goddess of 

 Love, — the noblest concrete expression of that 

 principle which strives to draw sex relations to 

 the higher planes of beauty. And here had I, 

 a decadent human, typical of a neuropathic 

 age, destroyed this exquisite embodied achieve- 

 ment for the purpose of reversing Nature's 

 plan. For I should transfer to the female, to 



