LIFE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FLAMINGO. 53 



I doubt whether De Soto felt any more pride when he first 

 saw the broad waters of the Mississippi than I did at the sight 

 before me. I took off my hat and swung it, and shouted, 

 " The flamingoes ! the flamingoes ! " It was then that I first 

 recognized the import of the name " flamingo," — flame-colored. 

 The flock was fully four miles away, and consisted of not 

 less than twenty-five hundred birds. I had spent fully two 

 months each of the two preceding years to find these birds ; 

 and I now felt I almost had them in my grasp — vain delusion. 



For six successive days each week, and for six successive 

 weeks, did we devise every plan that we could conceive of, 

 every day looking out upon that beautiful flock of not less 

 fhan twenty-five hundred birds. In all that time we could 

 never get within eight hundred yards of them. Then our 

 water supply became exhausted, and we set sail for Key West, 

 about one hundred and twenty miles away, for new supplies ; 

 and thus ended the flamingo campaign of 1884. 



The bird is related to the Anatidce, or duck family, crush- 

 ing its food between the mandibles, and sifting out such 

 portions as it does not wish to swallow, as does the duck. 

 This leads the natives in the West Indies to say that the 

 flamingo lives on dirt. Its food is small mollusks, crustar 

 ceans, and other marine animals gathered from the mud. The 

 peculiar shape of the beak is specially adapted to its manner 

 of feeding. With its long legs to wade, and its long neck to 

 reach down into the water to collect its food, it brings the 

 upper portion of the upper mandible directly on the bottom, 

 so that it may be almost literally said to stand on its head 

 when it eats. 



It is very interesting to see a flock feeding, especially when 

 the bottom chances to be a little hard, so that they have to dig 

 their food out from the earth. The water prevents their 



