Order XXII. PHCENICOPTERI. 



Flamingoes have been classed alternately with the Ducks and 

 with the Storks, but recent writers on ornithology have for the 

 most part followed Huxley and arranged them as an intermediate 

 and independent group. 



They have a remarkable bill, covered with a soft epidermis, and 

 bent downwards in the middle, the lower mandible very thick and 

 practically fixed, the upper mandible much smaller and highly 

 movable ; the margins of both mandibles furnished with lamellae. 

 Both the neck and legs are very long, and adapted, with the bill, 

 for feeding whilst the bird stands in shallow water with the neck 

 turned down and the head inverted, so that the lower mandible is 

 uppermost, the lamellae at the sides of the mandibles serving to 

 strain the food from water and mud as the head is moved from side 

 to side. The tarsus and long bare tibia are scutellated both in front 

 and behind ; the feet are short, the anterior toes fully webbed, the 

 hind toe small or wanting. 



The skull is desmognathous and holorhinal, basipterygoid pro- 

 cesses are very rudimentary or wanting, nostrils pervious ; cervical 

 vertebrae 18 or 19. The carotids are peculiar, the right is much 

 larger than the left, and the two unite at the base of the neck. 

 The caeca are very large. The wing is aquincubital ; primaries 12 ; 

 the oil-gland tufted ; an aftershaft is present ; there are no bare 

 spaces at the side of the neck, and both dorsal and ventral apteria 

 are short. The ambiens muscle is present, and the femoro-caudal 

 absent ; accessory femoro-caudal, semitendinosus and its accessory 

 present. The deep plantar tendons unite completely, and then 

 divide to supply the anterior toes, as in most birds with the 

 hallux rudimentary or wanting. 



The nidification is described under P. roseus. The young are 

 hatched with a straight bill; they are covered with do\vn and 

 able to run. 



The order consists of a single family, and the two species found 

 in India may be kept in the typical genus Phoenicopterus. Tney 

 have been separated by some writers on account of the difEeient 

 form of the bill. 



