288 



A VES ORDER PHCENICOPTERIFORMES. 



Fiij. 47. THK SACRBD IEIS 

 (Ibis cethiopica). 



procured in Egypt, one of them having been shot near Damietta about 

 twelve years ago. We know ako that the species extends to the Persian 

 Gulf, its winter home being in Eastern and 

 Southern Africa. 



There are no less than twenty different genera 

 of Ibises, and many of them are remarkable for 

 highly developed crests and ornamental plumes, 

 while in the Sacred Ibis and its allies the head 

 and neck are bare. The Glossy Ibises (Plegadis) 

 are among the commonest and best known of the 

 whole family, as one of them, P. falcinellus, has 

 visited England on many occasions. This species 

 breeds in numbers on the marshes of the lower 

 Danube, as well as in similar places in Africa 

 and India, and the egg is one of the most 

 beautiful of any of the Heron-like birds, being 

 of a deep greenish-blue, darker and richer in 

 tint than the eggs of any species of Herons. 



We now approach the great group of swimming 

 birds, such as the Ducks, the Pelicans, and their 

 allies ; but, before arriving at the consideration 



of these well-marked orders, there intervenes a remarkable 



The Flamingoes. form of bird > the Flamingo. In its long legs and long 



Order neck it might well be taken for a kind of Heron or Stork ; 



Phcenicopteri- and, indeed, until recent years, the position of the 

 formes. Flamingoes was considered to be in close proximity to 



the last-named birds. They are, however, more nearly 

 allied to the Ducks and Geese, having a desmognathous or "bridged" 

 palate ; while the young are hatched covered with down, and are able to run 

 about in a few hours and obtain food for them- 

 selves. These features they possess in common 

 with the Ducks and Geese and the Screamers, 

 and these three groups were united by Huxley 

 into one natural order, Chenomorphce. 



The Flamingoes resemble the Ducks and 

 Geese in having the sides of the bill laminated, 

 an arrangement which enables them to sift their 

 food in the way which every one of our readers 

 must have seen tame Ducks do in a farmyard or 

 on a lake. Besides many osteological characters, 

 the Flamingoes present an external appearance 

 unique among birds. The legs are abnormally 

 long, the metatarsus being three times as 

 long as the femur, and the anterior toes fully 

 webbed. The neck is also extremely long, the 

 cervical vertebrae being eighteen or nineteen in 

 number. The bill is decurved in a remarkable 

 manner ; but in the nestling, which is covered 

 with greyish-white down, the bill is straight, 

 as in any other Duck-like bird. 



The most curious feature in the economy of the Flamingo is its nest, which 

 is built of mud. For a long time it was supposed that the birds sat upon 



Fig. 48. TriF! COMMON FLAMINGO 

 (Phoenieopterus roseuti). 



