FLAMINGO. 245 



short, the three anterior ones palmate, with incised webs, hind toe elevated, 

 free, and small ; claws flattened, obtuse. 



The Flamingo is an inhabitant of Southern Europe, but 

 there can be no doubt that it occasionally straggles to the 

 northern portions of that continent. Naumann states that 

 one was shot at Alzey in Hesse Darmstadt ; and during 

 the hot summer of 1811, six birds in the plumage of 

 the second year were shot on the Rhine out of a flock of 

 twenty-seven ; a number of others being observed passing 

 over Bamberg on the 25th of June, and a few being seen in 

 various places in July of the same year. A. von Homeyer 

 has recorded the capture of an adult in Pomerania in Sep- 

 tember 1869. In France the Flamingo frequents the great 

 marshes and salt-lakes near the mouth of the Rhone, where 

 it certainly deposited its eggs in considerable numbers so 

 recently as 1869, although perhaps hindered in the work of 

 reproduction by persecution both then and in subsequent 

 years ; and stragglers not unfrequently ascend the valley of 

 the Rhone up to the lakes of Savoy. In Siberia one is known 

 to have been obtained so far north as the vicinity of Irkutsk, 

 in 52° N. lat. Considering the above facts, it is not remark- 

 able that the Flamingo should have occurred on several 

 occasions in England ; nor does it appear to the Editor that 

 there are sufficient grounds for the assumption, without evi- 

 dence, that all the examples observed must necessarily have 

 been birds which had escaped from confinement. Inasmuch 

 as there are two American Flamingoes which are also well 

 known in confinement, and are quite as likely to have 

 escaped, it is significant that there should be no records of 

 the occurrence of any but the present species. 



A Flamingo was recorded by Mr. A. J. Jackson, in ' The 

 Field ' of the 16th of August, 1873, as having been shot in 

 the Isle of Sheppey on the 2nd of that month, having pre- 

 viously been observed in Essex ; but in reply to an inquiry 

 the Editor has been informed by Mr. Bartlett, of the 

 London Zoological Gardens, that a bird escaped on the 

 19th of July, and was perhaps the above. No such sus- 



