Ernest.—Our river will furnish him with all these; Jack and Francis can catch as many as he will want; and very soon, with such long legs as he has, he may learn the way to the river and find them for himself.
Father.—I hope you will take great care of him, for I have a great desire to preserve him.
Fritz.—How delightful it will be, if we can catch some other sorts of wild birds, and have a yard to keep them in! But look, father, he is web-footed like aquatic birds, while his legs are long like the stork: is not this rare and extraordinary?
Father.—Not at all: many other birds, as well as the flamingo, possess the double faculty of running and of swimming.
Ernest.—But, father, are all flamingoes like this, of such a beautiful red colour, and the wings so exquisitely tinted with purple? I think I have seen the flamingo in my Natural History, and the colours were not like these: so perhaps this is not a flamingo at last?
Father.—I believe it is a flamingo, Ernest, and that this difference in the plumage denotes the age of the bird: when very young they are gray, at a more advanced age they are white; and it is only when they are full grown, that they are adorned with this beautifully tinted plumage.
Ernest.—This dead one, then, is an old fellow, and I am afraid by his colours that he will make but a tough dish: shall we not take him home to mamma?
Father.—Yes, certainly. I leave to you the care of carrying him, in the best manner you can: in the mean time, I shall repeat my visit to the canes, for I have not done with them yet. I accordingly selected, now, some of the oldest of the stalks, and cut from them their hard-pointed ends, which I had well considered would serve for the tips of my arrows, for which they are also used by the savages of the Antilles. Lastly, I looked for two of the longest canes, which I cut, for the purpose of measuring the height of our giant tree, about which I felt so deep an interest. When I told my sons the use I intended to make of the two longest canes, they indulged themselves in a hearty laugh at me, and maintained, that though I should lay ten such canes up the trunk of the tree, the last would not reach even the lowest branch. I requested they would oblige me by having a little patience; and I reminded them, that it was not long ago that they defied their mother to catch the fowls, because they themselves had not known how to set about it.
When I had done all I wanted, I began to think of returning. Ernest took the charge of all the canes; Fritz carried the dead flamingo, and I took care of the living one. We had not gone far, when Fritz, addressing himself to Ponto, said: Oho, lazy bones! so you think you are to be excused from any part of the burden; have the goodness to carry my flamingo on your back, with the same politeness as your companion Turk observed, towards my little monkey.
As he said this, he tied the dead bird upon his back, without the least resistance from the patient animal.