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These Indians have lived in these mud bottoms so long, crossing the streams on rafts made of bundles of tules, and only going to the higher land when their homes are inundated by the floods, that they have become a near approach to a web-footed human being. Our stream merely touched the mountain, then turned directly to the southeast in a gradually increasing stream.
Is not this a beautiful bird, though rather singular in its appearance? To see it in perfection we should have to travel at least as far as Sardinia, and possibly to Africa, its native country. Observe its wonderfully long and slender legs. They are so formed as to enable it to wade into morasses, or even rivers, in quest of food, but it can also swim, when so disposed, being perfectly web-footed.
In that book we shall meet many of our old friends again, and learn something more of a venture in which the motor boys were already interested. "Boys, this has been an interesting trip for me," said Professor Snodgrass. "I have the two horned toads, seven web-footed lizards, and over fifty other valuable specimens to take back with me. I would not have missed this trip for a great deal."
The web-footed birds occupy no less than thirty-one cases; to each of which the visitor should pay some attention. The first case of the series is gay with the bright red plumage of the flamingos, with their crooked upper mandible, and their long legs and necks.
But Flora, who probably had not the same taste for the beauties of nature that I had, suddenly darted forward like an arrow, pounced upon a creature that was swimming quietly at the edge of the water, and brought it to us. It was a most curious animal. It resembled an otter in form, but was web-footed, had an erect bushy tail like the squirrel, small head, eyes and ears almost invisible.
It was like the voice of no beast or bird with which we were familiar. At first it was distant; but it rapidly approached, tearing through the night and apparently through the tree-tops, like the harsh cry of a web-footed bird with a snarl in it; in fact, as I said, a squawk.
Holding his captive down beneath the net, he leaned forward on his knees, to get a better view. Over his face came a look of disappointment. "It's only a harmless lizard," he said, "and not one of the web-footed variety, either. That's too bad. I thought I had my toad." "I'm glad, Professor," said Rose.
Among the Birds, this similarity of voice in Families is still more marked. We need only recall the harsh and noisy Parrots, so similar in their peculiar utterance. Or take as an example the web-footed Family, do not all the Geese and the innumerable host of Ducks quack?
At last, almost dazed by the unspeakable, lightning-like, climatic transformations, the great iron steeds brought us to Portland, the metropolis of the great state of Oregon. Here, as in many places on the Pacific coast, people should be web-footed during the rainy season to escape the drowning, and iron clad during the dry season to escape the merciless peltings of the clouds of shot-like dust.
There happened to be several Lincolnshire men that year in Florence, and there was a dinner at which I, as one of the "web-footed," by descent if not birth, was present, and I told them the story of my Pitti catastrophe. The lady's concluding words produced an effect which may be imagined more easily than described.
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