ix 
contrive to let out both their birds at the same time. 
Another question is, if they are so let out in company, 
how is it that they are so composed as to keep together, and 
not rather so flutterred as to fly wildly in any direction, 
and so disperse: the Hemipodes we can imagine flying a 
short distance, and at night being attracted by each other’s 
call: but in the instance of the Demoiselle Cranes, which 
occurred in Orkney, and are rejected on the ‘same plea, 
and with more unanimity; two birds escaping would 
probably, one or other, take a far distant flight, and, 
in the first agitation of renewed liberty, probably a 
divergent one, from its companion. 
How rarely we hear of birds being mzssing about the 
tume previous to the capture of these supposed ‘escapeds,’ 
there is ove instance in the Flamingo, of August, 1873. 
This bird, about which there is no unanimity as to 
its occurrence under natural conditions, was sufficiently 
conspicuous to be observed more than once, namely in 
Essex, before it was shot in Sheppey; and may probably 
have been the bird which Mr. Bartlett knew to have 
escaped fron the London Zoological Gardens, on the 1gth 
of the previous July. 
It would have been interesting to have known the 
exact particulars of this escape, how it came about, it 
had been a guide by which to comprehend the question 
of the escapes of the larger birds; at any rate only one ap- 
pears to have regained its liberty ; which last consideration 
might be taken as valid in some instances, for example 
that of the Griffon Vulture, for their rejection. 
Without doubt, many of the small Foreign birds 
escape from confinement. More than once when visiting 
dealers’ shops, I have seen them loose, and flying about ; 
and this makes it the more surprising that, (considering 
what absolute proof has been required of the natural 
b 
