Redruff 



and surprise ; so did his mother, but from that 

 time she began to be a little afraid of him. 



In early November comes the moon of a 

 weird foe. By a strange law of nature, not 

 wholly without parallel among mankind, all 

 partridges go crazy in the November moon of 

 their first year. They become possessed of a 

 mad hankering to get away somewhere, it does 

 not matter much where. And the wisest of 

 them do all sorts of foolish things at this period. 

 They go drifting, perhaps, at speed over the 

 country by night, and are cut in two by wires, 

 or dash into lighthouses, or locomotive head- 

 lights. Daylight finds them in all sorts of 

 absurd places, in buildings, in open marshes, 

 perched on telephone wires in a great city, or 

 even on board of coasting vessels. The craze 

 seems to be a relic of a bygone habit of migra- 

 tion, and it has at least one good effect, it 

 breaks up the families and prevents the constant 

 intermarrying, which would surely be fatal to 

 their race. It always takes the young badly 

 their first year, and they may have it again the 

 second fall, for it is very catching; but in the 

 third season it is practically unknown. 



328 



