if they proved successful. Though they were, Forrest refused to give Bird additional money. He did not want to share in his success (which must have been at least a hundred thousand dollars on "Gladiator" alone). Bird's frustration with Forrest pushed him into writing novels. These include Calavar (1834), The Infidel (1835), The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow (1835), Sheppard Lee (1836), Nick of the Woods (1837) (his most successful novel), and The Adventures of Robin Day (1839). Calavar and The Infidel are notable for their graphic and accurate details and descriptions of Mexican history. In an 877-page study of American literature from the Revolutionary War through 1940, scholar Alexander Cowie found The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow second only to Logan by John Neal (1822) in its level of incoherence. His final novel was A Belated Revenge, and it was finished by his son, Frederick M. Bird (1889). Bird also pursued a number of other interests. In 1837, he began a career as a journalist, working as the Associate Editor for The American Monthly Magazine. He became the editor of the North American Magazine and United States Gazette in 1847. He also taught medicine at the Pennsylvania Medical College and ran for Congress in 1842 (an attempt which was later aborted). The five years from 1834 to 1839 were filled with too much activity: six novels and a part of a seventh, his marriage, the birth of his son, and his final bitter quarrel with Forrest. According to Christopher Looby, "Bird's biographers say that the intensity of these literary labors led to a breakdown of his health, possibly including a mental disorder, and that he retired to a farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1840 to restore himself." In 1853, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He then changed his occupation again. He became the Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Materia Medica at the Pennsylvania Medical College in Philadelphia (1841–1843). During this period he met Senator John M. Clayton, became interested in politics, was a delegate to the Whig Convention in Baltimore in 1844, and in 1848 wrote a campaign biography of General Zachary Taylor. He then bought a third interest in the Philadelphia North American and United States Gazett. This was his final profession. He became ill in the early winter of 1853, and it was too late to seek remedy in a