THE CRANE KIN 7 D. 331 



of Europe. Its beauty, its size, and the peculiar 

 delicacy of its flesh, have been such temptations 

 to destroy or take it, that it has long since desert- 

 ed the shores frequented by man, and taken re- 

 fuge in countries that are as yet but thinly peo- 

 pled. In those desert regions the flamingos live 

 in a state of society, and under a better polity 

 than any other of the feathered creation. 



When the Europeans first came to America, 

 and coasted down along the African shores, they 

 found the flamingos on several shores on either 

 continent, gentle, and no way distrustful of man- 

 kind. * They had long been used to security in 

 the extensive solitudes they had chosen, and 

 knew no enemies, but those they could very well 

 evade or oppose. The Negroes and the native 

 Americans were possessed but of few destructive 

 arts for killing them at a distance, and when the 

 bird perceived the arrow, it well knew how to 

 avoid it. But it was otherwise when the Euro- 

 peans first came among them: the sailors, not 

 considering that the dread of fire-arms was totally 

 unknown in that part of the world, gave the flam- 

 ingo the character of a foolish bird, that suffered 

 itself to be approached and shot at. When the 

 fowler had killed one, the rest of the flock, far 

 from attempting to fly, only regarded the fall of 

 their companion in a kind of fixed astonishment : 

 another and another shot was discharged; and 

 thus the fowler often levelled the whole flock, 

 before one of them began to think of escaping. 



* Alton's New History of Birds. 



