these are not ordinary birds.

Beasts, having twice as many feet as birds, have learned to apply them
to many uses. They dig with them, hold down their food with them, fondle
their children with them, paw their friends, and scratch their enemies.
One does more of one thing and another of another, and the feet soon
show the effects of the occupation, the claws first, then the muscles,
and even the bones dwindling by disuse, or waxing stout and strong. Then
the joy of doing what it can do well impels the beast further on the
same path, and its offspring after it.

[Illustration: THE NOSE OF THE ELEPHANT BECOMING A HAND HAS REDEEMED
ITS MIND]

And this leads at last to specialism. The Indian black bear is a "handy
man," like the British Tar--good all round. Its great soft paw is a very
serviceable tool and weapon, armed with claws which will take the face
off a man or grub up a root with equal ease. When a black bear has found
an ant-hill it takes but a few minutes to tear up the hard, cemented
clay and lay the deep galleries bare; then, putting its gutta-percha
muzzle to the mouth of each, it draws such a blast of air through them
that the industrious labourers are sucked into its gullet in drifts.
Afterwards it digs right down to the royal chamber, licks up the bloated
queen, and goes its way.

But there is another worker in the same mine which does not go to work
this way. The ant-eater found fat termites so satisfying that it left
all other things and devoted its life to the exploiting of anthills, and
now it has no rival at that business, but it is fit for nothing else.
Its awkward digging tools will not allow it to put the sole of its foot