FLAMINGOS. 153 



The true mergansers perhaps not more than seven species are all adorned 

 with a more or less conspicuous crest on the head, our North American hoodnl- 

 merganser (Lophodytes cucuttatus ) being in that respect the most noteworthy, as it 

 is also altogether the prettiest species of the group. 



A small genus of South American ducks are doubtfully referred to this sub-family, 

 and may probably constitute a separate group, viz., the so-called 'torrent-ducks' (^[er- 

 ganetta). The bill is more like that of the ordinary ducks, but their plumage recalls 

 that of the mergansers, while a sharp and large spur at the bend of the wing is en- 

 tirely peculiar. They inhabit only the highest Andes from Columbia to Chili, and 

 the rapidity with which they swim and dive against the mountain-torrents is described 

 as truly astonishing. 



Among all the curious modifications of the typical bird-beak, none is more strange 

 and aberrant than that of the flamingos (PHCENICOPTERGIDE^). The lower 

 mandible forms a deep and broad box, into which the upper one, which is much lower 

 and narrower, fits like a lid ; the sides are provided with quite duck-like lamellae ; and, 

 to complete the oddness of the structure, both mandibles at the middle are bent 

 abruptly downwards. This makes the flamingo a ' sifter,' indeed, and the bill is used 

 to great advantage in sifting out the various minute crustaceans, molluscs, and vegeta- 

 ble matter which they gather from the soft mud of the salt-water lagoons frequented 

 by them. In feeding, the head is bent forwards until the anterior deflected part of 

 the bill is parallel with the ground. The gullet is remarkably narrow, and allows only 

 the minutest particles to pass into the stomach. In this particular, and also in the 

 lamellae and the narrowness of the upper mandible, the flamingos present a most 

 striking and interesting analogy to the baloenid whales, the 'whale-bone' of which has 

 the same function as the lamellae of the Anatidas and the flamingos. 



On account of the extreme elongation of the neck (which, by the way, is not 

 caused by a particularly great number of vertebrae, there being only eighteen, but by 

 a prolongation of the individual vertebras, especially in the middle portion), and also 

 on account of the equally lengthened legs, the flamingos were associated with the 

 waders by the early authors. Some recent ornithologists who still adhere to this view 

 have strengthened it by adducing several anatomical features in support of the affinity 

 to the Herodii, especially to the ibises. According to them the characters of the 

 breast-bone, and still more the pelvis, the number of ribs, the pterylography, and the 

 visceral arrangement point dii-ectly toward the latter order. Huxley, on the other 

 hand, thinks that the flamingo is " so completely intermediate between the Anserine 

 birds on the one side, and the storks and herons on the other, that it can be ranged 

 with neither of these groups, but must stand as the type of a division by itself." This 

 position, however, seems to us indefensible, since the flamingos show no such peculiar 

 characters that warrant their independent position. Combining characters of both, it 

 must belong to one or the other of the two groups, and it does not seem to us that the 

 characters are so nicely balanced as to leave us in doubt in regard to the place of the 

 flamingos, following, as Ave do, those authors who associate them with the Anseres. It 

 will suffice to mention the following characters : The lacrhymo-nasal region is elongate'd ; 

 the frontalia are narrow, not covering the orl its above: grooves for the orbital glands 

 are present ; so are also basi-pterygoid processes, th< ugh rudimentary; all characters 

 which are duck-like and not at all herodinine, and the furculum and the shoulder-blades 

 are distinctly anserine too. The muscular formula, BXY, points neither way, nor does 

 the pterylosis strike us as so extremely distinct from that of the Anseres. The partly 



