CHAPTER IX
(SEPTEMBER)
On the housetop, one by one
Flock the synagogue of swallows
Met to vote that Autumn's gone.
—Gautier: "Life."
FARMERS WHO WEAR FEATHERS
Sh! Go easy! Pretend you're a horse or a cow.[21] We've gone south with the swallows—it's September you see—and those queer birds over there are flamingoes. The flamingoes are a shy lot; I don't know why. I can't think it's on account of their looks; for there's the kiwi, the hornbill, and sakes alive—the puffins! They all have funny noses, too, but none of them are particularly shy, and you can walk right up to a Papa Puffin almost. Whatever the reason is, the flamingoes are very easily frightened and they're particularly suspicious of human beings. Yet we've simply got to meet them and have them in this chapter, for they are among the most interesting of the feathered workers of the soil. They just live in mud; build those tower-like nests out of it, walk about in it, and get their meals by scooping up mud and muddy water from the marshes where they live, on the borders of lakes and seas. They strain out the little creatures wiggling about in these scooped-up mouthfuls.
I. Feathered Farmers with Queer Noses
"What a funny nose! What happened to it?"
I knew you'd say that. Everybody does. But just watch now and see. That flamingo over there, stalking about on his stilt-like legs, sticks his long neck down to the muddy water, turns that funny nose upside down and——
"Why, of all things, is he going to stand on his head?"