Looking toward it they saw emerging from the water the most curious creature either of them had ever beheld.

It wasn't a fish, Trot decided, nor was it a beast.

It had wings, though, and queer wings they were: shaped like an inverted chopping-bowl and covered with tough skin instead of feathers.
It had four legs--much like the legs of a stork, only double the number--and its head was shaped a good deal like that of a poll parrot, with a beak that curved downward in front and upward at the edges, and was half bill and half mouth.

But to call it a bird was out of the question, because it had no feathers whatever except a crest of wavy plumes of a scarlet color on the very top of its head.

The strange creature must have weighed as much as Cap'n Bill, and as it floundered and struggled to get out of the water to the sandy beach it was so big and unusual that both Trot and her companion stared at it in wonder--in wonder that was not unmixed with fear..