hment, and the number
of species of palms and orchids. But it will have nothing to say of
the marvels of the slow decay of a Victoria Regia leaf, or of the
spiral descent of a white egret, or of the feelings which Roosevelt
and I shared one evening, when four manatees rose beneath us. It was
from a little curved Japanese bridge, and the next morning we were to
start up-country to my jungle laboratory. There was not a ripple on
the water, but here I chose to stand still and wait. After ten minutes
of silence, I put a question and Roosevelt said, "I would willingly
stand for two days to catch a good glimpse of a wild manatee." And
St. Francis heard, and, one after another, four great backs slowly
heaved up; then an ill-formed head and an impossible mouth, with the
unbelievable harelip, and before our eyes the sea-cows snorted and
gamboled.

Again, four years later, I put my whole soul into a prayer for
manatees, and again with success. During a few moments' interval of a
tropical downpour, I stood on the same little bridge with Henry
Fairfield Osborn. We had only half an hour left in the tropics; the
steamer was on the point of sailing; what, in ten minutes, could be
seen of tropical life! I stood helpless, waiting, hoping for anything
which might show itself in this magic garden, where to-day the foliage
was glistening malachite and the clouds a great flat bowl of oxidized
silver.

The air brightened, and a tree leaning far across the water came into
view. On its under side was a long silhouetted line of one and twenty
little fish-eating bats, tiny spots of fur and skinny web, all so much
alike that they might well have been one bat and twenty shadows.

A small crocodile broke water into air which for him held no moisture,
looked at the bats, then at us, and slipped back into the world of
crocodiles. A cackle arose, so shrill and sudden, that it seemed to
have been the cause of the shower of drops from the palm-fronds; and
then, on the great leaves of the Regia, which defy simile, we
perceived the first feathered folk of this single tropical
glimpse--spur-winged jacanas, whose rich rufus and cool lemon-yellow
no dampness could deaden. With them were gallinules and small green
herons, and across the pink mist of lotos blossoms just beyond, three
egrets drew three lines of purest white--and vanished. It was not at
all real, this onrush of bird and blossom revealed by the temporary
erasing of the driven lines of gray ra