his age, he was as strong as he ever had been, as tireless, as active, as quick of sight and of hearing.
A certain beauty he had even when seen standing at rest, though his long legs and neck, his naked head, and long heavy bill curved towards the tip and much stouter than that of a heron, made him appear a fantastic, even a grotesque, figure, according well with the uncouth and ghostly background of the lagoon where the ibises slept. But it was in the high air and in the full light of the sun that he was at his best. Then—his neck and legs stretched to the utmost, his wide wings, more than six feet from tip to tip, fully extended—he was a splendid and memorable sight as he sailed and circled two hundred feet, five hundred feet, a thousand feet above the marshes, looking down upon his fellows. Always, when soaring thus, Sanute mounted well above all the other birds of the ibis flock, for he was larger than any of the others and stronger of wing and he liked to exhibit his supremacy. And of them all he was not only the largest and strongest but also the handsomest. Time had not dulled his colors but had brightened and intensified them. His yellowish-brown bill was yellower than theirs; his long legs and the sides of his naked head were bluer; his body and wings were of a purer and more brilliant whiteness; his tail and wing-tips, instead
