PHCENICOPTERUS ANTIQUOEUM 5 



Its principal breeding-places lie in Africa, and in Arabia and 

 Persia, where it collects during the breeding season in countless 

 numbers. It also breeds in Spain, and is said to do so in the Rhone 

 Delta. Hume, and after him, Barnes (J.B.N.H.S. vi.. No. 3, p. 285) 

 have commented on the curious and untidy habit these birds possess 

 of dropping eggs about in a casual sort of manner, and in this way a 

 good many have been found in India. 



Other ornithologists have noted this habit, and it seems to be one 

 common to the whole genus, as Barnes notes having obtained eggs 

 thus which he considered belonged to the Lesser Flamingo. 



Again, my friend Dr. E. Hartert, when visiting Bonaire, came 

 across a colony of Flamingoes breeding ; and, though he could not 

 approach near enough to obtain specimens and satisfy himself as to 

 the species, he managed to visit the nesting-places, and he mentions 

 that he obtained two fresh eggs which were lying in the water. 

 Here the birds do not seem to have commenced breeding in earnest, 

 and these eggs appear to have been casually dropped by them into 

 the water, either before the nest had been made to receive them, 

 or, more likely, before the birds felt inclined to commence incubation. 



All kinds of flamingoes, of which the nidification is known, 

 breed in large communities, and seem to select much the same kind 

 of country — sheets of water, wide in extent, but very shallow — as the 

 sites in which to make their nests. These are inverted cones of mud, 

 some twelve or eighteen inches high, with the ends flattened off and a 

 shallow cavity made in their summits. The nests are made close 

 together, in many cases several in a group, almost touching one 

 another ; but of course their proximity to each other depends greatly 

 on the depth of the water in which they are placed. Where this is 

 variable the nests will be found in close clusters in the shallower 

 parts, sometimes even on mud- or sand-banks above water-level. 

 Where the water is all shallow — such as is found in the Ehone 

 Delta, Spain, and elsewhere — the nests are scattered casually over 

 a considerable extent of land. In Bonaire the land on which the 

 birds had made their nests was not of mud or sand covered by water, 

 but of coral. Hartert's own words describe the place vividly for us ; 

 he says : — 



