his tail he seemed to try to tell me some- 

 thing I was too dull to understand. After 

 regarding him awhile uncomprehend- 

 ingly I returned to the magazine, but 

 before I could take up the interrupted 

 lines there was a swift dash into the 

 room, and with a sweep of wings he 

 brushed my hair in passing. Then 

 alighting on the railing outside he again 

 waited, with his brown body in a con- 

 tinued and anxious quiver. 



"There," I thought, "the cat is after 

 that nest !" and failing to note the 

 further behavior of the bird I went hur- 

 riedly to the nest tree. This was unwise, 

 as I found out afterwards. I should have 

 followed the bird's movements. As it 

 was I found an empty nest, the fledglings 

 having been just brought off. So far as 

 I could see this had been well done, but 

 I failed to come upon a sign of even one 

 of the closely-hidden youngsters. 



The following hour brought home the 

 man of the house, a person most wise in 

 bird-ways, and the tale of the Thrush 



was immediately told him. His search 

 of the place was thorough, with a culprit 

 trailing anxiously at his heels, and upon 

 a bois d'arc a good distance removed 

 from the home tree the large fledgling 

 was found, hanging head down, caught 

 by the thigh upon a strong thorn. It 

 looked as though he had used a strong 

 wing in his first flight, but had alighted 

 clumsily, and toppling had fallen upon 

 a thorn. In a flash I saw the wonderful 

 intelligence of the old bird. He had 

 asked for help where he had seen it given 

 before, and failed of the providence he 

 had learned to trust through a misunder- 

 standing of a bird's way of asking as- 

 sistance. 



When taken down the little one was 

 warm yet but quite dead. Then I looked 

 at the beautiful, brown body stiffening 

 upon the palm of the man of the house, 

 the wise man, and wept. "It is as if I 

 had cried to the powers above me in a 

 great extremity and had found only an 

 uncomprehending ignorance !" I said. 

 Austin Arnold McCausland. 



NOON. 



Careless, rioting Noon, crowned queen of the Hours, — 

 Gold-clad, shimmering Noon, bride of the August sun, — 



Warm and lazy I lie, prone in thy scented bowers, 



And laugh with thy maiden Minutes, who trip past one by one. 



Opulent, prodigal Noon, throbbing with life and with gladness, 

 Soothing the ache of sorrows as with some magical balm, — 



Has the summer, love-smitten, seized with a mystical madness, 

 Plucked out his heart and laid it, pulsing and hot, in thy palm ? 



Palpitant, purple-zoned Noon, my eyelids are drowsily drooping; 



Over the foot-hills of dreamland my thoughts and my memories stray. 

 Now, from thy zenith-wide throne, I see thee reluctantly stooping 



To lay down thy scintillant scepter, oh passionate sovereign of Day! 



— Rae Mortimer Seymour. 



