HERONS. 157 



some seventy yards before their sentries showed signs of alarm, and at that distance 

 with the glass observed the sitting birds as distinctly as one need wish. Their long 

 red legs doubled under their bodies, the knees [heels!] projecting as far as or beyond 

 the tail, and their graceful necks neatly curled away among their back-feathers, like a 

 sitting swan, with their heads resting on their breasts, all these points were unmis- 

 takable. Indeed it is hardly necessary to point out that in the great majority of cases 

 (the nests being hardly raised above the level of the flat mud), no other position was 

 possible. Still none of the crowded nests contained a single egg! How strange it is 

 that the flamingo, a bird which never seems happy unless up to its knees in water, 

 should so long delay the period of incubation ! for, before eggs could be hatched in 

 the nests, and young reared, the water would have entirely disappeared, and the 

 flamingos would be left stranded in the midst of a scorching plain of sun-baked mud. 

 Being unable to return to the marisma, I sent Felipe back there on 26th May, when 

 he found eggs." 



So much for the breeding habits, of which the accompanying cut gives a most 

 excellent illustration. To complete the picture of these interesting birds we add the 

 following, also from Mr. Chapman's pen : 



"In herds of three hundred to five hundred, several of which are often in sight at 

 once, they stand feeding in the open water, all their heads under, greedily tearing up 

 the grasses and water-plants from the bottom. On approaching them, which can only 

 be done by extreme caution, their silence is first broken by the sentries, who com- 

 mence walking away with low croaks ; then the hundreds of necks rise at once to the full 

 extent, every bird gaggling its loudest, as they walk obliquely away, looking back over 

 their shoulders as though to take stock of the extent of the danger. Pushing a few 

 yards forward, up they all rise, and a more beautiful sight cannot be imagined than 

 the simultaneous spreading of their crimson wings, flashing against the sky like a 

 gleam of rosy light. In many respects these birds bear a strong resemblance to 

 geese. Like them, flamingos feed by day ; and great quantities of grass, etc., are 

 always floating about the muddy water where a herd has been feeding. Their cry is 

 almost undistinguishable from the gaggling of geese, and they fly in the same catena- 

 rian formations." 



ORDER IX. HERODII. 



The limitation of the present order, as it is adopted here, dates back only to 

 1867, when Huxley founded the 'family' Pelargomorphre for all the desmognathous 

 'waders' except the flamingos. His action was then cordially welcomed as a relief 

 from the different attempts of separating the larger and hard-billed waders and the 

 Scolopacoid birds, attempts which had failed, since the separation Avas based upon the 

 length and position of the hind toe, or the condition of the feathering of the face, or 

 the situation of the nostrils, or the nature of the bill, or the condition of the young when 

 leaving the egg, or some other trifling character. Broadly speaking, the group pro- 

 posed by Huxley consists of three types, ibises, storks, and herons, which, in addi- 

 tion to the desmognathous character of the palate, agree in having no trace of basi- 

 pterygoid processes, therein differing from the members of the foregoing order, and in 

 having long ' wading ' legs with no full webs between the toes, therein different both 

 from the foregoing order and from that following, the Steganopodes. At first the group 

 was generally regarded as a very natural and rather homogeneous one. The only dis- 



