154 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



li 



stork-like arrangement of the viscera, on the other hand, is completely counterbalanced 

 by the strongly and unmistakably anserine nature of the tongue, and by the presence 

 of well-developed coeca. We do not lay much stress upon the external characters, 

 though the lamella? of the beak, the palmation of the toes, and the number of tail- 

 feathers there being fourteen in the flamingo, but only twelve or ten in all Herodiones 

 point in the same direction. A peculiar character is the number of primaries, the 

 flamingo having eleven, or one more than most birds. The arrangement of the carotids 

 is also worth mentioning. It is usually asserted that Phoenicopterus has only one carotid, 

 the right a very unusual arrangement, since nearly all birds which possess only one 

 have retained the left one. Professor Garrod, however, has shown that this is a mis- 

 take, and that the flamingo has two carotids, though the left one is very small, and 



unites with the right one at the point where, in allied birds, 

 the two arteries meet in order to follow alongside of each 

 other, a unique modification, as illustrated by the accom- 

 panying diagram. 



The characters which seem to connect the flamingo with 

 the ibises and storks we regard partly as ancestral, and partly 

 as the result of adaptation to a similar mode of life. On the 

 other hand, placing them, as we do, next to the latter group, 

 we, of course, do not deny their mutual relationship. 



The group is now a very small one, only about eight 

 species being recognized at present. Otherwise during earlier 

 geological periods, as there are more fossil Pho3nicopteroid 

 Fir,. 74. Carotids in phcenicop- birds known from the deposits in France alone than are now 



distributed all over the tropical and sub-tropical world. The 

 t ) r P e ^ s therefore a rather antique one, and at one time num- 

 erous species and genera inhabited the shore of the lakes 

 and estuaries under latitudes considerably north of the pres- 

 ent limit of the family. In the eocene beds of France have been found remains of ap- 

 parently flamingo-like birds, upon which have been based the genera Agnopterus and 

 Elornis. From the miocene deposits there are described a Phcenicopterus croizeti, 

 and not less than five species of the genus Pal&olodus. As will be seen from the 

 accompanying sketch of the restored skeleton of one of these, they were essentially 

 like the flamingos of the pi-esent day in regard to the length of the legs and neck, but 

 the bill was straight and altogether more normal than in the latter, the undeveloped 

 young of which likewise has a straight bill. They very properly constitute the family 

 PAL^EOLODONTID^E. 



The recent PHCENICOPTERID^E embrace only two genera, PJuxnicoparra and Phoe- 

 nicopterus. The former, which is characterized by its thick, short, and otherwise 

 aberrant beak and the absence of a hind toe, is peculiar to the Andes of Chili and 

 Peru, and consists only of one imperfectly known species, P. andimis. 



Of the true flamingos the species belonging to the fauna of the United States, 

 P. ruber, has been known under this name since the time of Linnaeus, but he and his 

 successors dui'ing the last century believed it to be conspecific with the Mediterranean 

 species. Bonnaterre, in 1790, and Temminck thirty years later, expressed a belief of 

 their being separable ; but Brehm in 1823 seems to have been the first author to take 

 their distinctness for granted, adopting without hesitation the name P. antiquorum, 

 which Temminck had only proposed hypothetically. 



rotiil ; ri, right innominate 

 rs, right subclavian. 



