FLAMIMiu. 1,,() 



Wo liiid now :iiii|.k' li-isuic to colli'ct our tlioiiglits. as tlie liinls luid niovt-d auay to 

 a disitaucf and alighted. As we canit' up to the rookerv we had seeu !nni(h'eds of birds 

 sitting on their nests with tlieir legs doubled under theui. not liaugiiig down as is usually 

 represented, and when we oanie to examine the nests we saw at once the al)sur(htv of 

 this theory. Some completed nests, ccmtaining eggs, were only six inehes hiirh, some on 

 the other hand were at least four feet aV)ove the water. Now a l)inl with legs two fi>et 

 long might manage tti dangle them down from a four-foot nest, if it ciiose to ])ut itself in 

 such an uncomfortable position. t)ut it woidd experience some diftienltx in doing this on 

 a, nest only six inches high. Many nests were fully eighteen inches in diameter at the 

 toj). and some three feet broad at the base, cpiite a straddle for a biid the legs of which 

 are placed only some two or three inches apart. 



The rookery occupied about a half-acre of land, or rather wliat was once land. I'orall. 

 or nearly all. the nests were surrounded by water, and w.-re l)uilt on a kind of peninsuhi 

 which had water on three sides of it. The nests were constructed wholh of marl, piled 

 layer upon layer without waiting for any of the plastic material to dry. for in some cases 

 the bottom was as soft as the top. In scooping u]) the marl, tlie birds evidenth n.«e the lower 

 mandible of the l)ill, which isspiead and Hattened witii thelcct. The cla\ is not gathered 

 at random about the nest, but from a, pit on either side, or often from tliree pits, and it 

 is the joining of these pits in a continuous series that ciiuses the nests to be 

 surrounded by water. None of the nests were constructed quite to the margin of the 

 peninsula, thus a dike nearly surrounded the rookery. I say nearly, for this was broken 

 through at the southern end, and the water from the creeks Mowed in. thus the slight 

 inland tide rose and fell among the nests. 



The nests Avere, as a rule, not oyer two feet apart, meiisuring from their base, but 

 the\- were generalh- constructed in groups of from three to seAeri or eight, each one 

 being joined to one or two others at the base, oftentimes for afoot or more. This rookery 

 had evidentl>' been u.sed for at least one year previous to this, as we saw many nests, 

 especially the higher ones, which to all appearances had been constructed on top of an 

 old foundation. New nests built throughout of soft nuid Avere, on the ayerage, only a 

 foot high, and were built in a certain part of the rookery. All of the nests in the older 

 portion of the rookery contained eggs, as a rule only one being dept)site(l, and this 

 was placed in the shallow cup on the top of the truncated cone. Incubation had begun, 

 and in nearly all the eggs the embryos were considerably adyauced. Thus it was 

 apparent that most of the Flamingos had laid all of the eggs that they would that season. 

 We estimated that there were in the neighborhood of 1*. (•()() nests, and in all of thsse W'e 

 found only some fifty sets of tw'o eggs, and three in one case only. 



There is coniderable waste among the eggs, from two causes: first, hy the eggs 

 roUins ofl" the too sliohth- hollowed to])s of the nests, thus we found tnanv eggs in the 

 water; second, from the eggs sinking into the .soft nuid of the uewl\- formed nests. We 

 found tiuite a number almost liuried from having been deposited before the f o]i of the nest 



