by a shirt which had been considerably creased, for
he stooped and raised himself by turns, as his zoological observations
required.

After the first interchange of civilities, Raphael thought it necessary
to pay M. Lavrille a banal compliment upon his ducks.

"Oh, we are well off for ducks," the naturalist replied. "The genus,
moreover, as you doubtless know, is the most prolific in the order
of palmipeds. It begins with the swan and ends with the zin-zin duck,
comprising in all one hundred and thirty-seven very distinct varieties,
each having its own name, habits, country, and character, and every one
no more like another than a white man is like a negro. Really, sir,
when we dine off a duck, we have no notion for the most part of the vast
extent----"

He interrupted himself as he saw a small pretty duck come up to the
surface of the pond.

"There you see the cravatted swan, a poor native of Canada; he has come
a very long way to show us his brown and gray plumage and his little
black cravat! Look, he is preening himself. That one is the famous eider
duck that provides the down, the eider-down under which our fine ladies
sleep; isn't it pretty? Who would not admire the little pinkish white
breast and the green beak? I have just been a witness, sir," he went on,
"to a marriage that I had long despaired of bringing about; they have
paired rather auspiciously, and I shall await the results very eagerly.
This will be a hundred and thirty-eighth species, I flatter myself, to
which, perhaps, my name will be given. That is the newly matched pair,"
he said, pointing out two of the ducks; "one of them is a laughing goose
(_anas albifrons_), and the other the great whistling duck, Buffon's
_anas ruffina_. I have hesitated a long while between the whistling
duck, the duck with white eyebrows, and the shoveler duck (_anas
clypeata_). Stay, that is the shoveler--that fat, brownish black rascal,
with the greenish neck and that coquettish iridescence on it. But the
whistling duck was a crested one, sir, and you will understand that I
deliberated no longer. We only lack the variegated black-capped duck
now. These gentlemen here, unanimously claim that that variety of
duck is only a repetition of the curve-beaked teal, but for my own
part,"--and the gesture he made was worth seeing. It expressed at once
the modesty and pride of a man of science; the pride full of obstinacy,
and the modesty well tempered with assurance.

"I don't