“didn’t I tell you it was handsome?  It has every color there is.”  And indeed it was handsome, worthy to be called the “Sultana;” with the most exquisite iridescent bluish-purple plumage, the legs yellow, or greenish-yellow (a point by which it may be distinguished from the Florida gallinule, as the bird flies from you), the bill red tipped with pale green, and the shield (on the forehead, like a continuation of the upper mandible) light blue, of a peculiar shade, “just as if it had been painted.”  From that moment the boy was a new creature.  Again and again he spoke of his altered feelings.  He could pull the boat now anywhere I wanted to go.  He was perfectly fresh, he declared, although I thought he had already done a pretty good day’s work under that scorching sun.  I had not imagined how deeply his heart was set upon showing me the bird I was after.  It made me twice as glad to see it, dead though it was.

Within an hour, on our way homeward, we came upon another.  It sprang out of the lily pads, and sped toward the tall grass of the shore.  “Look! look! a purple!” the boy cried.  “See his yellow legs!” Instinctively he raised his gun, but I said No.  It would be inexcusable to shoot a second one; and besides, we were at that moment approaching a bird about which I felt a stronger curiosity,—­a snake-bird, or water-turkey, sitting in a willow shrub at the further end of the bay.  “Pull me as near it as it will let us come,” I said.  “I want to see as much of it as possible.”  At every rod or two I stopped the boat and put up my glasses, till we were within perhaps sixty feet of the bird.  Then it took wing, but instead of flying away went sweeping about us.  On getting round to the willows again it made as if it would alight, uttering at the same time some faint ejaculations, like “ah! ah! ah!” but it kept on for a second sweep of the circle.  Then it perched in its old place, but faced us a little less directly, so that I could see the beautiful silver tracery of its wings, like the finest of embroidery, as I thought.  After we had eyed it for some minutes we suddenly perceived a second bird, ten feet or so from it, in full sight.  Where it came from, or how

[Transcriber’s note:  missing page 142]

too, shaped like a narrow wedge, was unconscionably long; and as the bird showed against the sky, I could think of nothing but an animated sign of addition.  A better man—­the Emperor Constantine, shall we say?—­might have seen in it a nobler symbol.

While we were loitering down the river, later in the afternoon, an eagle made its appearance far overhead, the first one of the day.  The boy, for some reason, refused to believe that it was an eagle.  Nothing but a sight of its white head and tail through the glass could convince him.  (The perfectly square set of the wings as the bird sails is a pretty strong mark, at no matter what distance.) Presently an osprey, not far from us, with a fish in his claws,