FLAMINGOES AT HOME. 



683 



waslied off by the rains since last tenanted. If the nest is very low, 

 four or five inches may be added, and sticks, shells, or anything else 

 that may be lying about the base, are scooped up and worked in 

 without any apparent arrangement, 

 just as if the soft mud with the 

 debris contained in it were lifted 

 with a trowel and placed on the 

 top. There is no preparation made 

 for the new repair of the old nest, 

 and, if an addled e^g remains, it is 

 simply covered over with the fresh 

 stuff and built into the cone. I 

 measured some scores of nests. 

 The highest was fifteen inches, the 

 lowest eight inches, the latter being 

 the height of the nests in the first 

 year. The nests were about eight- 

 een inches in diameter at the bot- 

 tom, and nine to eleven inches on 

 the top. The concavity was very 

 slight. In a few cases about half a 

 dozen feathers were found on the 

 nest, but in general the eggs were 

 laid on the bare mud. I said "eggs," 

 but, out of some hundreds of nests 

 examined by me in June, there were 

 not half a dozen which contained 

 two eggs, one being the usual num- 

 ber. As some of those taken at the time were in an advanced stage 

 of incubation, it is probable that at each breeding-season but one e^^ 

 is usually laid. 



The nesting-season is from the middle to the end of May. The 

 young birds are hatched about the end of June or beginning of July, 

 and about the first week in August are so fully fledged that, while 

 some can fly, almost all are capable of taking care of themselves. 

 It is at this time that the young birds are taken, sometimes by scores. 

 As the nests are in places so difficult of access, and the birds could 

 not be carried without danger of breaking their slender legs, the 

 problem of getting them to the shore for shipment would be difficult 

 to solve, were it not that a flock of young birds are easily driven. 

 When they are first approached, those who can fly get up and circle 

 overhead, but in a very short time they pitch Muth the other young 

 birds now being driven away, and they do not fly again. The entire 

 lot are then driven like a flock of sheep over the flat banks of marl or 

 through the shallow lagoons. In the molting-season the old birds 

 are sometimes thus driven, as they can not then fly. 



TnE Flamingo. 



