FLAMINGO 255 
Ibises and Storks seems to be the strongest ; but that it should stand 
as a distinct Family is manifest. 
Though not a few birds have in proportion to the size of their 
body very long legs and a very long neck, yet the way in which 
both are employed by the Flamingo seems to be absolutely singular. 
In taking its food this bird reverses the ordinary position of its 
head so as to hold the crown downwards and to look backwards. 
The peculiar formation of the bill, which to the ordinary observer 
looks as if broken, is of course correlated with this habit of feeding, 
as well as the fact that the mazilla is (contrary to what obtains in 
most birds) not only highly movable, but is much smaller than the 
mandibula—while the latter is practically fixed. Both jaws are, 
however, beset with Janellx, as in most of the Duck-tribe, and the 
food is thereby sifted out of the mud as the Flamingo wades with 
its long neck stretching to the bottom of the shallow waters it 
frequents. Still more extraordinary is one of the alleged uses of 
its long legs. Dampier asserts as of his own observation near 
Querisao (i.e. Curaciio) prior to 16831 that the hen stands upon them 
while performing that duty which in other birds is rightly called 
“sitting,” and the statement, being confirmed by other writers,? 
remained unquestioned for a century and a half. Crespon in 1844 
(Fauna Meérid. ii. p. 69) was one of the first to raise a doubt on the 
subject, though he had before (Ornithol. du Gard, p. 397) accepted 
what was and still is the prevalent belief in Southern France (J)is, 
1870, p. 441); but he now went so far as to declare that Fla- 
mingos did not build a nest at all, and only laid their eggs on a 
1 The passage is too quaint and interesting not to be quoted :—“ They build 
their Nests in shallow Ponds, where there is much Mud, which they scrape 
together, making little Hillocks, like small Islands, appearing out of the Water, 
a foot and a half high from the bottom. ‘They make the foundation of these 
Hillocks broad, bringing them up tapering to the top, where they leave a small 
hollow pit to lay their Eggs in ; and when they either lay their Eggs, or hatch 
them, they stand all the while, not on the Hillock, but close by it with their 
Legs on the ground and in the water, resting themselves against the Hillock, and 
covering the hollow Nest upon it with their Rumps: For their Legs are very 
long ; and building thus, as they do, upon the ground, they could neither draw 
their legs conveniently into their Nests, nor sit down upon them otherwise than 
by resting their whole bodies there, to the prejudice of their Eggs or their young, 
were it not for this admirable contrivance, which they have by natural instinct. 
They never lay more than two Eggs, and seldom fewer. The young ones cannot 
fly till they are almost full grown ; but will run prodigiously fast ; yet we have 
taken many of them.”—Dampier, New Voyage rownd the World, ed. 2, corrected, 
i. p. 71, London: 1699. 
2 Thus Catesby (Nat. Hist. Carol. i. p. 73), though apparently got from the 
information of others; but Pallas (Zoogr. Lioss.-Asiat. ii. p. 208), obviously from 
his own observation, says :—‘‘ Vera est Dampier observatio, eos in stagnis marinis 
vadosis corradere colles sesquipedali altitudine, quorum summitati cavatae im- 
ponunt ova vulgo bina, que colli adstantes pectore fovent.” 
