specimen to bits for that.

"In this way, you see, I give my little push in the advancement of
science.

"But all this is merely imitating Nature. I have done more than that
in my time. I have--beaten her."

He took his feet down from the mantel-board, and leant over
confidentially towards me. "I have _created_ birds," he said in a low
voice. "_New_ birds. Improvements. Like no birds that was ever seen
before."

He resumed his attitude during an impressive silence.

"Enrich the universe; _rath_-er. Some of the birds I made were new
kinds of humming birds, and very beautiful little things, but some of
them were simply rum. The rummest, I think, was the _Anomalopteryx
Jejuna. Jejunus-a-um_--empty--so called because there was really
nothing in it; a thoroughly empty bird--except for stuffing. Old
Javvers has the thing now, and I suppose he is almost as proud of it
as I am. It is a masterpiece, Bellows. It has all the silly clumsiness
of your pelican, all the solemn want of dignity of your parrot,
all the gaunt ungainliness of a flamingo, with all the extravagant
chromatic conflict of a mandarin duck. _Such_ a bird. I made it out
of the skeletons of a stork and a toucan and a job lot of feathers.
Taxidermy of that kind is just pure joy, Bellows, to a real artist in
the art.

"How did I come to make it? Simple enough, as all great inventions