SPOONBILLS. 125 



This species rarely occurs east of the Mississippi Valley. Its habits 

 are said to resemble those of the preceding species, " but its cry is 

 very different, resembling the notes of a French horn and being very 

 sonorous." 



The Whooping Swan {179. Olor cygnus) is an Old World species which 

 sometimes is found in Greenland. It differs from either of our Swans in 

 liaving the " basal portion of the bill and entire lores yellow in the adult." 



OBDER ODONTOGLOSS-SJ. LAMELLIROSTRAL 

 GRALLATORES. 



Family Phcenicopterid^. Flamingoes. 



The seven species included in this family are distributed through- 

 out the tropics. Five species are American, of which one reaches our 

 southern border in Florida. Flamingoes are gregarious at all seasons. 

 They are rarely found far from the seacoasts, and their favorite re- 

 sorts are shallow bays or A^ast mud flats which are flooded at high 

 water. In feeding, the bill is pressed downward into the mud, its pe- 

 culiar shape making the point then turn upward. The ridges along 

 its sides, as in the bills of Ducks, serve as strainers through which are 

 forced the sand and mud taken in with the food. 



182. Phoenicopterus ruber {Linn.). Flamingo. (See Fig. 18.) 

 ^tZ.— Beautiful rosy vermilion, scapulars and under parts somewhat paler, 

 flanks carmine, primaries and secondaries black ; bill yellowish black at the 

 tip. /w.— " Grayish white, the wings varied with grayish and dusky " 

 (Ridgw.). L., 45-00 ; W., 16-25; Tar., 12-50; B., 5-5Q. 



Range.— Xt\n,n\A(i coasts of tropical and subtropical America ; resident in 

 southwestern Florida (Monroe County) ; casual along the Gulf coast to Texas; 

 accidental in South Carolina. 



Nest., in mud flats, a truncate cone of mud ten to twenty inches in height, 

 hollowed on top. JEggs., two, soiled whitish with a chalky deposit, 3-55 x 2-20. 



The Flamingo is resident in the United States only in the vicinity 

 of Cape Sable, Fla., where in 1890 Mr. W. E. D. Scott observed a flock 

 of about a thousand birds (The Auk, vii, 1890, pp. 221-226). 



ORDER HERODIONES. HERONS, STORKS, IBISES, 



ETC. 



Family Plataleid^. Spoonbills. 



The Spoonbills inhabit the warmer parts of the world. Only one 

 of the five or six species is found in America. They frequent the 



