4 FEET AND HANDS 



the thumbs are free. The giant fruit bats of the 

 tropics clamber about the trees quite acrobatically 

 with their thumbs and feet. 



That Apollyonic monster of the prime, the ptero- 

 dactyl, did even better. Stretching on each little 

 finger a lateen sail that would have served to waft 

 a skiff across the Thames, it kept the rest of its hands 

 for other uses. But what bearing has all this on the 

 case of birds? Here is a whole sub-kingdom, as 

 they call it, of the animal world which has un- 

 reservedly and irrevocably bartered one pair of its 

 limbs for a flying-machine. The apparatus is made 

 of feathers — a new invention, unknown to amphibian 

 or saurian, whence obtained nobody can say — and 

 these are grafted into the transformed frame of the 

 old limbs. The bargain was worth making, for the 

 winged bird at once soared away in all senses from 

 the creeping things of earth, and became a more 

 ethereal being ; " like a blown flame, it rests upon 

 the air, subdues it, surpasses it, outraces it ; it is 

 the air, conscious of itself, conquering itself, ruling 

 itself." But the price was heavy. The bird must 

 get through life with one pair of feet and its mouth. 

 But this was all the bodily furniture of Charles 

 Francois Felu, who, without arms, became a famous 

 artist. 



A friend of mine, standing behind him in a salon 

 and watching him at work, saw him lay down his 

 brush and, raising his foot to his head, take off his 

 hat and scratch his crown with his great toe. My 



