THE AMERICAN FLAMINGO. 



(jV'N this interesting family of birds 

 are included seven species, dis- 

 tributed throughout the tropics. 

 -,1 Five species are American, of 



which one reaches our southern 

 border in Florida. Chapman says 

 that they are gregarious at all seasons, 

 are rarely found far from the seacoasts, 

 and their favorite resorts are shallow- 

 bays or vast mud flats which are 

 flooded at high water. In feeding the 

 bill is pressed downward into the 

 mud, its peculiar shape making the 

 point turn upward. The ridges along 

 its sides serve as strainers through 

 which are forced the sand and mud 

 taken in with the food. 



The Flamingo is resident in the 

 United States only in the vicinity 

 of Cape Sable, Florida, where flocks 

 of sometimes a thousand of these 

 rosy Vermillion creatures are seen. 

 A wonderful sight indeed. ]\Ir. D. 

 P. Ingraham spent more or less 

 of his time for four seasons in the 

 West Indies among them. He states 

 that the birds inhabit the shallow 

 lagoons and bays having soft clayey 

 bottoms. On the border of these the 

 nest is made by working the clay up 

 into a moimd which, in the first 

 season is perhaps not more than a foot 

 high and about eight inches in 

 diameter at the top and fifteen inches 



at the base. If the birds are unmo- 

 lested they will return to the same 

 nesting place from year to year, each 

 season augmenting the nest by the 

 addition of mud at the top, leaving a 

 slight depression for the eggs. He 

 speaks of visiting the nesting grounds 

 where the birds had nested the previous 

 year and their mound-like nests were 

 still standing. The birds nest in June. 

 The number of eggs is usually two, 

 sometimes only one and rarely three. 

 When three are found in a nest it is 

 generally believed that the third has 

 been laid by another female. 



The stature of this remarkable bird 

 is nearly five feet, and it weighs in the 

 flesh six or eight pounds. On the 

 nest the birds sit with their long legs 

 doubled imder them. The old story 

 of the Flamingo bestriding its nest 

 in an ungainly attitude while sitting 

 is an absurd fiction. 



The eggs are elongate-ovate in shape, 

 with a thick shell, roughened with a 

 white flakey substance, but bluish 

 when this is scraped off. It requires 

 thirty-two days for the eggs to hatch. 



The very fine specimen we present 

 in Birds represents the Flamingo 

 feeding, the upper surface of the 

 unique bill, which is abruptly bent in 

 the middle, facing the ground. 



2lS 



