vents 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.

Redruff's mother knew it was coming as soon as she saw the frost grapes
blackening, and the maples shedding their crimson and gold. There was
nothing to do but care for their health and keep them in the quietest
part of the woods.

The first sign of it came when a flock of wild geese went honking
southward overhead. The young ones had never before seen such
long-necked hawks, and were afraid of them. But seeing that their mother
had no fear, they took courage, and watched them with intense interest.
Was it the wild, clanging cry that moved them, or was it solely the
inner prompting then come to the surface? A strange longing to follow
took possession of each of the young ones. They watched those arrowy
trumpeters fading away to the south, and sought out higher perches to
watch them farther yet, and from that time things were no more the same.
The November Moon was waxing, and when it was full, the November madness
came.

The least vigorous of the flock were most affected. The little family
was scattered. Redruff himself flew on several long erratic night
journeys. The impulse took him southward, but there lay the boundless
stretch of Lake Ontario, so he turned again, and the waning of the Mad
Moon found him once more in the Mud Creek Glen, but absolutely alone.

V

Food grew scarce as winter wore on. Redniff clung to the old ravine and
the piney sides of Taylor's Hill, but every month brought its food and
its foes. The Mad Moon brought madness, solitude, and grapes; the Snow
Moon came with rosehips; and the Stormy Moon brought browse of birch and
silver storms that sheathed the woods in ice, and made it hard to keep
one's perch while pulling off the frozen buds. Redruff's beak grew
terribly worn with the work, so that even when closed there was still
an opening through behind the hook. But nature had prepared him for the
slippery footing; his toes, so slim and trim in September, had sprouted
rows of sharp, horny points, and these grew with the growing cold,
till the first snow had found him fully equipped with snow-shoes and
icecreepers. The cold weather had driven away most of the hawks and
owls, and made it impossible for his four-footed enemies to approach
unseen, so