INGENIOUS SUCCESS. 21 
over one which it was agreed they must save, in 
the vain endeavor to make its rumpled feathers 
lay down, a brilliant idea suggested itself. “ I’ll 
tell you ! ” said Mrs. Maxwell ; “ we’ll get a nest 
and put the bird up fighting ! Of course, in that 
case, it would be all bristled up, and its feathers 
standing every way.” 
The nest was found, the bird perched on its 
edge, a few touches given it by her artistic fingers, 
and it had all the appearance of an enraged 
mother on the defensive ! The next step was to 
procure a bird with which it could properly be 
fighting, and mount him in a suitable attitude. 
This done, the group was voted a complete suc- 
cess by the little circle interested in it. 
It is needless to say the collection so begun 
never grew to be at all large. 
The school did not receive pecuniary assistance 
that would allow of their going to any expense, 
and neither she nor the professor had a surplus 
of elegant leisure which they could donate to it. 
But the effort was successful in one thing — it 
showed to Mrs. Maxwell what a wonderful field 
for artistic effect taxidermy presented. Her mind, 
ever longing for methods of expression in forms 
of beauty, was captivated by it, and to be able to 
reproduce the characteristic grace and abandon 
of each animal’s life became her dream as truly 
as it was ever Rosa Bonheur’s. 
