THE FLAMINGO 179 



the swash was as reassuring as the approach of two figures 

 had been alarming. 



Without further delay, the birds returned to their 

 homes. They came on foot, a great red cohort, marching 

 steadily toward me. I felt like a spy in an enemy's camp. 

 Might not at least one pair of the nearly four thousand eyes 

 detect something unnatural in the newly grown bush almost 

 within their city gates ? No sign of alarm, however, was 

 shown ; without confusion, and as if trained to the evolution, 

 the birds advanced with stately tread to their nests. There 

 was a bowing of a forest of slender necks as each bird light- 

 ly touched its egg or nest with its bill ; then, all talking 

 loudly, they stood up on their nests ; the black wings were 

 waved for a moment, and bird after bird dropped forward 

 upon its egg. After a vigorous, wriggling motion, designed 

 evidently to bring the egg into close contact with the skin, 

 the body was still, but the long neck and head were for a 

 time in constant motion, preening, picking material at the 

 base of the nest, dabbling in a near-by puddle, or perhaps 

 drinking from it. Occasionally a bird sparred with one of 

 the three or four neighbors which were within reach, when, 

 bill grasping bill, there ensued a brief and harmless test of 

 strength. 



In some instances a bird was seen adding to a nest in 

 which an egg had already been deposited. Standing on the 

 nest, it would drag up mud from the base with its bill, which 

 was then used to press the fresh material into place. The 

 feet were also of service in treading down the soft, marly 

 clay. 



The nests at this side of the rookery were below the 

 average in size. Few of them reached a height of eight 

 inches, while nests in the older part of this city of huts 

 measured thirteen inches in height, with a diameter of four- 

 teen inches at the top and twenty- two at* the bottom. The 

 depression forming the nest proper was never more than an 

 inch in depth, and was without lining of any kind. 



