232 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
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 suc- 
cess. During a few moments’ interval of a trop- 
ical 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 fo- 
liage 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 croco+ 
