kly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocky billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side.

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and nest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply has sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He who from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

[Illustration: From col. F. M. Woodruff.
GAMBEL'S PARTRIDGE.]

GAMBEL'S PARTRIDGE.

Gambel's Partridge, of which comparatively little is known, is a
characteristic game bird of Arizona and New Mexico, of rare beauty,
and with habits similar to others of the species of which there are
about two hundred. Mr. W. E. D. Scott found the species distributed
throughout the entire Catalina region in Arizona below an altitude of
5,000 feet. The bird is also known as the Arizona Quail.

The nest is made in a depression in the ground sometimes without any
lining. From eight to sixteen eggs are laid. They are most beautifully
marked on a creamy-white ground with scattered spots and blotches of
old gold, and sometimes light drab and chestnut red. In some specimens
the gold coloring is so pronounced that it strongly suggests to the
imagination that this quail feeds upon the grains of the precious
metal which characterizes its home, and that the pigment is imparted
to the eggs.

After the nesting season these birds commonly gather in "coveys" or
bevies, usually composed of the members of but one family. As a rule
they are terrestrial, but may take to trees when flushed. They are
game birds _par excellence_, and, says Chapman, trusting to the
concealment afforded by their dull colors, attempt to