1 o8 Notes and News. f"^ uk 



LJan. 



Great difficulty was experienced in collecting newly-made nests of the 

 Flamingo. On a former trip Mr. Chapman secured nests which had 

 been built the previous year and, at the beginning of the rainy season, 

 were sufficiently sun-baked to permit of their successful transportation to 

 New York City. Newly-made nests, however, were found to be water- 

 soaked by almost continuous rains, and not only was their weight there- 

 fore greatly increased, but an attempt to remove them generally resulted 

 in their disintegration. This emergency having been anticipated, a can- 

 vas canoe was taken to the rookery, into which the nests were directly 

 removed after having been placed upon boards. Without further hand- 

 ling, the canoe itself being lifted upon the deck of the schooner in which 

 Mr. Chapman travelled, the nests were conveyed directly to Nassau where 

 they were cast by Dr. B. E. Dahlgren, Chief of the Museum's Department 

 of Preparation. The surface structure and modelling were, therefore, 

 perfectly preserved, and the plaster models subsequently made from 

 these casts were covered with characteristic Bahaman marl, of which the 

 nests themselves are composed. The result is a perfectly satisfactory 

 and accurate representation of the Flamingo's nest, far less perishable 

 than the nest itself, which experience has shown crumbles very quickly 

 when exposed to steam heat in the Museum. 



The group of Flamingoes which the Museum is now about to place 

 upon exhibition will contain some seventeen adult birds, with young in 

 various stages of development. The pose of each bird, whether feeding 

 or brooding its young, incubating or roosting in various poses, is based 

 upon photographs from life, and is, therefore, true to nature. It was recog- 

 nized, however, that, even with the greatest care in the production, such 

 a group would come far short of representing the conditions under which 

 the birds live, if it could not be shown as the foreground of a colony of 

 from fifteen hundred to two thousand pairs of these brilliantly colored 

 birds. Accordingly the services of Mr. Fuertes,-who accompanied Mr. 

 Chapman upon his first trip to the Bahamas, were secured to paint upon a 

 canvas, twenty feet long and ten feet high, a representation of the nesting 

 colony, which, in connection with the birds represented in the group 

 would give a graphic idea of a. populous Flamingo rookery. 



Mr. Hindi's work in connection with the Los Banos painting, previ- 

 ously mentioned, was so successful that he was induced to come to New 

 York from San Francisco to paint the landscape for the background of 

 the Flamingo group. So satisfactorily have these artists cooperated that 

 the result of their combined efforts has met with the approval not only of 

 artists but also of naturalists. 



The successful completion of these two elaborate, exceedingly difficult 

 and striking groups is due not alone to the skill of the artists, taxider- 

 mists, and modellers who have so effectively contributed to their con- 

 struction, but primarily to the foresight, energy, and intelligence of the 

 Associate Curator of this Department, Mr. Frank M. Chapman, who 

 conceived their execution, secured the materials that compose them, and 



