ng great
absorptive powers. In shape the bird resembled a flamingo, and its
feathers were of an old-rose color, mottled with lichen-green. A
beard-like radiation of roots decorated its head, and its bill was
extremely delicate.

[Illustration: The Lillipoutum.]

Such wonders as these intensified the glamor of the interior world. I
was fast becoming bewildered with the intoxication of an environment
of strange, abnormal creatures--unlike anything I had ever seen
before.

The goddess regarded her pets with the greatest interest, and was
pleased at being the first to acquaint me with such living wonders of
Atvatabar.

"Your holiness," I said, "these creatures are so wonderful that unless
I had actually seen them it would be impossible for me to believe in
their existence." As I spoke, two strange bat-like forms flew toward
us; they were flying orchids, known as jeerloons, with heart-shaped
faces and arms terminating in wire-like claws. Their wing projections
were bristling with suckers like the rays of a starfish. Altogether
they were weird, uncanny creatures. The goddess caught one of them in
her hands, and laughed at my excitement. "They will haunt you in your
dreams," she exclaimed, "poor, pretty things!"

"But now," she added, "let me show you a plant that is fast becoming
a brood of animals, both root and flower. It is the jugdul. Still
rooted in the soil, strange faces are swelling in the mould, while the
flower is a leaf surmounted by a weird, small head, the nasal organ of
which is a ponderous proboscis. We do not know as yet what kind of
animal life will evolve from the plant, but the botanists and
physiologists of Atvatabar are agreed that at least two new species of
animals will be developed when the evolution of the zoophyte is
complete."

[Illustration: The Jugdul.]

I assured her holiness that I considered myself the most favored of
men to be permitted to visit the sanctuary wherein the occult
transmigration of life was being manifested. It was a rare experience!

Just then the goddess directed my attention to a flying root
resembling a humming-bird. It was the far-famed jalloast, the
semi-evolved humming-bird of Atvatabar. Other similar beings,
half-root, half-bird, were seen perched in a bower of tree-ferns,
whose waxy green fronds fell like an emerald cascade about the
jalloasts.

From porcelain boxes suspended along the roof of the conservatory a
perfect forest of strange plants depended, a