The bird
found itself in some small difficulty, out of which it either saw, or at
any rate found that it could extricate itself by striking out vigorously
with its feet and extending its toes as far as ever it could; it thus
began to learn the art of swimming and conceived the idea of swimming
synchronously, or nearly so; or perhaps wishing to get over a yard or two
of deep water, and trying to do so without being at the trouble of rising
to fly, it would splash and struggle its way over the water, and thus
practically swim, though without much perception of what it had been
doing. Finding that no harm had come to it, the bird would do the same
again and again; it would thus presently lose fear, and would be able to
act more calmly; then it would begin to find out that it could swim a
little, and if its food lay much in the water so that it would be of
great advantage to it to be able to alight and rest without being forced
to return to land, it would begin to make a practice of swimming. It
would now discover that it could swim the more easily according as its
feet presented a more extended surface to the water; it would therefore
keep its toes extended wherever it swam, and as far as in it lay, would
make the most of whatever skin was already at the base of its toes. After
many generations it would become web-footed, if doing as above described
should have been found continuously convenient, so that the bird should
have continuously used the skin about its toes as much as possible in
this direction.
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