he showed a bird about the size of a carrier-pigeon, but
with an even larger and stronger beak, white body, and wings and tail,
like some of the plumage of the head and neck, tinted with gold and
green. Around its neck was a little string of silver, and suspended
from this a small tablet with a pencil or style. Since by her look and
manner she seemed to expect an answer, I said--

"I am very glad you have given me the opportunity of making
acquaintance with another of those curiously tame and manageable
animals which your people seem to train to such wonderful intelligence
and obedience. We have birds on Earth which will carry a letter from a
strange place to their home, but only homewards."

"These," she answered, "will go wherever they are directed, if they
have been there before and know the name of the place; and if this
bird had been let loose after we had left, he would have found me, if
not hidden by trees or other shelter, anywhere within a score of
miles."

"And have your people," I asked, "many more such wonderfully
intelligent and useful creatures tamed to your service, besides the
ambau, the tyree, and these letter-carriers?"

"Oh yes!" she answered. "Nearly all our domestic animals will do
anything they are told which lies within their power. You have seen
the tyree marching in a line across a field to pick up every single
worm or insect, or egg of such, within the whole space over which they
move, and I think you saw the ambau gathering fruit. It is not very
usual to employ the latter for this purpose, except in the trees. Have
you not seen a big creature--I should call it a bird, but a bird that
cannot fly, and is covered with coarse hair instead of feathers? It is
about as tall as myself, but with a neck half as long as its body, and
a very sharp powerful beak; and four of these _carvee_ would clear a
field the size of our garden (some 160 acres) of weeds in a couple of
days. We can send them, moreover, with orders to fetch a certain
number of any particular fruit or plant, and they scarcely ever forget
or blunder. Some of them, of course, are cleverer than others. The
cleverest will remember the name of every plant in the garden, and
will, perhaps, bring four or even six different kinds at a time; but
generally we show them a leaf of the plant we want, or point out to
them the bed where it is to be found, and do not trouble their memory
with more than two different orders at a time. The Unicorns, as