19* A HISTORY OF 



melancholy It U as dull and reluctant in its motions, as the flamingo 

 is sprightly and active. It is slow of flight ; and when it rises to fly, 

 performs it with difficulty and labour. Nothing, as it would seem, 

 but the spur of necessity could make these birds change their situation, 

 or induce them to ascend into the air ; but they must either starve or 

 fly. 



They are torpid and inactive to the last degree, so that nothing can 

 exceed their indolence but theirgluttony ; it is only from the stimula- 

 tions of hunger that they are excited to labour ; for otherwise they 

 would continue always in fixed repose. When they have raised them- 

 selves about thirty or forty feet above the surface of the sea, they turn 

 their head with one eye downwards, and continue to fly in that posture. 

 As soon as they perceive a fish sufficiently near the surface, they dart 

 down upon it with the swiftness of an arrow, seize it with unerring 

 certainty, and store it up in their pouch. They then rise again, though 

 not without great labour, and continue hovering and fishing, with their 

 head on one side as before. 



This work they continue with great effort and industry till their bag 

 is full, and then they fly to land to devour and digest, at leisure, the 

 fruits of their industry. This, however, it would appear, they are not 

 long in performing ; for towards night they have another hungry call, 

 and they again reluctantly go to labour. At night, when their fishing 

 is over, and the toil of the day crowned with success, these lazy birds 

 retire a little way from the shore ; and, though with the webbed feet and 

 clumsy figure of a goose, they will be contented to perch no where but 

 upon trees among the light and airy tenants of the forest. There they 

 take their repose for the night; and often spend a great part of the 

 day, except such times as they are fishing, sitting in dismal solemnity 

 and as it would seem half asleep. Their attitude is, with the head 

 resting upon their great bag, and that resting upon their breast. There 

 they remain without motion, or once changing their situation, til) the 

 calls of hunger break their repose, and till they find it indispensably 

 necessary to fill their magazine for a fresh meal. Thus their life is 

 spent between sleeping and eating; and our author adds, that they are 

 as foul as they are voracious, as they are every moment voiding excre- 

 ments in heaps as large as one's fist. 



The same indolent habits seenn to attend them even in preparing for 

 incubation, and defending their young when excluded. The female 

 makes no preparation for her nest, nor seems to choose any place in 

 preference to lay in; but drops her eggs on the bare "ground to the 

 number of five or six, and there continues to hatch them. Attached 

 to the place, without any desire of defending her eggs or her young, 

 she tamely sits and suffers them to be taken from under her. Now and 

 then she just ventures to peck, or to cry out when a person offers to 

 beat her off. 



She feeds her young with fish macerated for some time in her bag , 

 and when they cry, flies off for a new supply. Labat tells us, that he 

 took two of these when very young, and tied them by a leg to a post 

 stuck into the ground, where he had the pleasure of seeing the old one 

 for several days come to feed them, remaining with them the greatest 

 part of the day, and spending the night on the branch of a tree that 



