356 BIRDS. 



bill reddisli. It appears to be found ia all the north of the eastern 

 continent*. 



Our last genus will be that of 



Phcenicopterus, Lin. 



The Flammant or Flamingos, one of the most extraordinary and the 

 most isolated of all birds. Its legs are excessively long; the three an- 

 terior toes are palmated to their ends, and that of the hind one is ex- 

 tremely short; the neck, quite as long and slender as the legs, and its 

 small head furnished with a bill whose lower mandible is an oval longitu- 

 dinally bent into a semi-cylindrical canal, while the upper one, oblong and 

 flat, is bent crosswise in its middle, so as to join the other exactly. The 

 membranous fossse of the nostrils occupy nearly all the side of the part 

 which is behind the transverse fold, and the nostrils themselves are lon- 

 gitudinal slits in the base of the fossae. The edges of the two mandibles 

 are furnished with small, and very delicate transverse lamina?, which, 

 with the fleshy thickness of the tongue, creates some affinity between 

 them and the ducks. Were it not for the length of their tarsi, and the 

 nudity of their legs, we might even place them among the Palmipedes. 

 They feed on shell-fish, insects and the spawn of fishes, which they 

 capture by means of their long neck, turning the head on one side to give 

 more effect to the hook of the upper mandible. They construct in marshes 

 their nest of earth, heaped up, placing themselves astride of it to hatch 

 their eggs, a position to which they are forced to resort, by the length of 

 their legs. The common species, 



Ph. ruber, Enl. 68 (The Red Flamingo), is from three to four 

 feet in height ; ash coloured, witli brown streaks, during the first 

 year ; in the second there is a rosy hue on the wings, and in the 

 third it acquires a permanent purple-red on the back, with rose-co- 

 loured wings. The quills of the wing are black; the bill yellow, 

 with a black tip, and the feet brown. 



This species is found in all parts of the eastern continent below 



forty degrees. Numerous flocks are seen on the southern coast of 



France, and they sometimes ascend as far as the Rhine. 



M. Temrainck thinks that the American Flamingo, which is altogether 



of a bright red, Wils. VIII, 6Q, and Catesb. 73, is a different species 



from that of Europe (a). 



* Glareola ncBvia, Gm., is the young of the common species. See Leach, Lin- 

 Trans. Xin, pi. xii, f. 2. Add Glar. auslralis, Leach, loc. cit. pi. xiv, or Glar. isa- 

 bella, Vieill.Gal. 263|— G/ar. orientalis, Leach, XIII;— G/ar. lactea, Tem. Col. 399. 



(«) l^° Dr. M' Murtrie, an American Naturalist, observes, that Temminck 

 has positively ascertained that the Flamingo of America is different from that of 

 Europe. The latter he calls Phan. antiquorum, but the American species Ph. ruber. 

 — Eng. Ed. 



