Illustrations for "Flights Abroad"

Illustrations for "Flights Abroad"

Short story by F. St. Mars adopts centers upon a black kite--that is, the migratory predator--who as the narrative opens is hunting in the Southern Downs of England. A series of events take it across Europe and eventually to Africa, engaging in showdowns with wild dogs and avoiding human hunters. In a dramatic finale, the kite kills a grouse but then: "Another rush of wings, mightier than the first. Another scuffle. Another burst of feathers, and the kite was down. A tremendous and awful apparition of a bird, known but vaguely to men as a war-like crested eagle, was on top of him. And there the story, and the life of our black kite, ended quite abruptly thus--!" (427). The story's point of view owes something to literary naturalism and its dynamics of Social Darwinism, most famously rendered in the works of Jack London.

Four illustrations to Mars's story were created by New Deal Gallery artist A. E. Cederquist. Their captions run as follow:

Page 419: "Before science he was a black or migratory kite and had no business where he was at all."

Page 423: "He knew that a caravan meant a city sooner or later, and it may mean food."

Page 425: "He dare not take his eyes off the crouching, advancing red shape in front of him."

Page 426: "The first sand grouse was down again, the kite on top of it."

Cederquist, A[rthur] E[manuel] (1884-1954)

The Outing Magazine

1910-07

Cooper, Ken

The Outing Magazine 56 (July 1910): 419, 423, 425, 426.

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Still images

Magazine illustrations