FLAMINGO 255 



Ibises and Storks seems to be the strongest ; but that it should stand 

 as a distinct Family is manifest. 



Though not a few birds have in proportion to the size of their 

 body very long legs and a very long neck, yet the way in which 

 both are employed by the Flamingo seems to be absolutely singular. 

 In taking its food this bird reverses the ordinary position of its 

 head so as to hold the crown dovvTiwards and to look backwards. 

 The peculiar formation of the bill, which to the ordinary observer 

 looks as if broken, is of course correlated with this habit of feeding, 

 as well as the fact that the maxilla is (contrary to Avhat obtains in 

 most birds) not only highly movable, but is much smaller than the 

 mandibvla — while the latter is practically fixed. Both jaws are, 

 hoAvever, beset with lamellx, as in most of the Duck-tribe, and the 

 food is thereby sifted out of the mud as the Flamingo wades with 

 its long neck stretching to the bottom of the shallow waters it 

 frequents. Still more extraordinary is one of the alleged uses of 

 its long legs. Dampier asserts as of his own observation near 

 Querisao (i.e. Cura9ao) prior to 1683^ that the hen stands upon them 





while performing that duty which in other birds is rightly called 

 " sitting," and the statement, being confirmed by othe 

 remained unquestioned for a century and a half. Crespon in 1844 ( (fi^^'J'^' 

 (Fauna Mdrid. ii. p. 69) was one of the first to raise a doubt on the 

 subject, though he had before (Ornithol. du Gard, p. 397) accepted 

 what was and still is the prevalent belief in Southern France (Ibis, 

 1870, p. 441); but he now went so far as to declare that Fla- 

 mingos did not build a nest at all, and only laid their eggs on a 



^ The passage is too quaint and interesting not to be quoted : — " They build 

 their Nests in shallow Ponds, where there is much Mud, which they scrape 

 together, making little Hillocks, like small Islands, appearing out of the Water, 

 a foot and a half high from the bottom. They make the foundation of these 

 Hillocks broad, bringing them up tapering to the top, where they leave a small 

 hollow pit to lay their Eggs in ; and when tliey either lay their Eggs, or hatch 

 them, they stand all the while, not on the Hillock, but close by it with their 

 Legs on the ground and in the water, resting themselves against the Hillock, and 

 covering the hollow Nest upon it with their Rumps : For their Legs are very 

 long ; and building thus, as they do, upon the ground, they could neither draw 

 their legs conveniently into their Nests, nor sit down upon them otherwise than 

 by resting their whole bodies there, to the prejudice of their Eggs or their young, 

 were it not for this admirable contrivance, which they have by natural instinct. 

 They never lay more than two Eggs, and seldom fewer. The young ones cannot 

 fly till they are almost full grown ; but will run prodigiously fast ; yet we have 

 taken many of them." — Dampier, New Voyage roiciid the World, ed. 2, corrected, 

 i. p. 71, London : 1699. 



- Thus Catesby {Nat. Hist. Carol, i. p. 73), though apparently got from the 

 information of others ; but Pallas {Zoogr. Ross.-Asiat. ii. p. 208), obviously from 

 his own observation, says : — "Vera est Dampieri observatio, eos in stagnis marinis 

 vadosis corradere colles sesquipedali altitudine, quorum summitati cavatae ini- 

 ponunt ova vulgo bina, quse colli adstantes pectore fovent." 



