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The antlers of the moose formed a huge, fantastic, flatly palmated or leaflike structure, separating into sharp prongs along the edges, and spreading more than four feet from tip to tip. To compare them with the short, polished crescent of the horns of Last Bull was like comparing a two-handed broadsword to a bowie-knife.
You notice that the tail is flattened vertically, and not like the tail of the beaver, which is compressed horizontally. You observe that the legs are short and very muscular that there are five toes on the fore-feet, slightly webbed or palmated, and four on the hind-feet much longer and much more webbed.
I counted, as in all the real crocodiles, thirty-eight teeth in the upper jaw, and thirty in the lower; in the former, the tenth and ninth; and in the latter, the first and fourth, were the largest. In the description made by M. Bonpland and myself on the spot, we have expressly marked that the lower fourth tooth rises over the upper jaw. The posterior extremities were palmated.
The cariboo of North America is a strongly-built, thickset animal, compared to the more graceful of his relatives. He carries on his head a pair of magnificent antlers, varying greatly in different specimens some palmating towards the upper ends, others with branches springing from the palmated portions.
The feet of some of these birds are partly webbed, so that, if necessary, they can change their mode of locomotion from running and wading to swimming. Birds whose feet are partly webbed are said to be semipalmated. This introduces us to that interesting group of birds whose toes are connected throughout their entire length by a thin, membranous web. Their feet are said to be palmated.
On passing the large island, I shot an animal resembling a water-rat, of large dimensions, particularly expanded across the loins, with stout hind legs and palmated feet, of a light slate colour and soft fine hair approaching fur, the colour gradually becoming lighter under the abdomen; the head was flatter than that of the usual tribe of water-rats, and resembled an otter.*
Among the living lay the mangled corpses of yesterday's hunt, and over each fought and feasted a host of gannets, sea-gulls, and cormorants. The bodies were hidden from view by the birds, which tore with beak and weak palmated talons, at the greasy, bloody carcasses, and above these wheeled and fluttered a cloud of competitors for a share of the spoils.
After sniffing it all over he fell to furrowing it excitedly with the two lowermost branches of his antlers, short, broad, palmated projections thrust out low over his forehead, and called by woodsmen "the ploughs." Every few seconds he would toss his head fiercely, like an ordinary bull, and throw the ooze over his shoulders.
He is exceedingly well formed and graceful; his horns are not so large as those of the stag, but, like his, they are annually caducous, falling off in the winter and returning in the spring. They are rounded below, but in the upper part slightly flattened or palmated. The antlers do not rise upward, but protrude forward over the brow in a threatening manner.
In the curious matamata, the jaws of which open very wide, these parts, instead of being armed by a strong beak, are protected by a sheath of horn. In the land tortoises, the feet are stump-like, the toes being enveloped in the skin, so that they can move but slowly. The marsh and lake tortoises have their feet palmated, to enable them to move either on the water or on land.
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