THE PALMIPEDES
Hawk
“The workman is known by his tools, and by the tools of the feathered creatures—that is to say, their beaks and claws—their way of life is not less easily recognized. If it were not already known to us, who could fail to infer the carnivorous disposition of the hawk from the shape of its beak—short, sharp, and hooked—and from the structure of its talons, armed as they are with pointed nails grooved underneath with a narrow channel after the manner of certain daggers, to facilitate the flow of blood from the wound? Does it call for any extraordinary perspicacity to recognize, in the heron’s long legs, veritable stilts which enable it to traverse, step by step, without getting wet, the inundated flats, as does the hunter in his long, waterproof marsh boots? And then, that long beak, pointed like a nail, does it tell us nothing? Does it not say that the bird bores deep [[93]]in the tufts of rushes and in the soft mud to pull out reptiles and worms?”
“It is the heron,” put in Emile, “that the fable tells about when it says:
“The long-necked, long-beaked heron went walking;
On its stilt-like legs one day it went stalking.”
Heron
“Yes,” said Uncle Paul, “that is the bird. Everything about the heron is long—legs, beak, neck. The length of its legs enables the bird to explore the swamp at its ease all day long without wetting a feather; its length of neck is needed that it may reach the ground without stooping; and the long beak is indispensable for burrowing in the tall tufts of grass where the reptile lurks, and for probing the mud where the worm buries itself.”