AN OLD STORY DISPROVED 



four feet apart. Standing on the nest, they scoop up with 

 their beak the surrounding mud, together with sticks, shells, 

 or anything else that may happen to be lying about the base, 

 and pat the mass into shape with the foot not merely 

 treading it down, but giving it vigorous slaps, the sound of 

 which can be heard at a considerable distance. In this way 

 they form a somewhat conical mound with a slight hollow at 

 the top, which may contain a few feathers, though it usually 

 has no lining of any sort. Sir Harry Blake stalked the 

 birds to within a hundred and fifty yards and watched 

 them carefully through field-glasses, but he saw none with 

 their legs dangling outside the nest they were always folded 

 under the bird in the usual way. Some nests are so low that 

 there would not be room for the legs to hang down. On 

 the mud-flats about the Guadalquivir Mr. Abel Chapman 

 saw hundreds of nests only a few inches high, so that 

 the ground looked like a large table covered with plates; 

 and we have ourselves observed the same thing in that dis- 

 trict. You may see the marks made by the bird's folded 

 legs on the rim of the nest. Occasionally the flamingo is 

 content to do without a nest altogether, merely depositing 

 its eggs on the ground. 



Old nests are often renovated year after year by the 

 addition of a fresh layer oi mud, and in this way they may 

 eventually attain a height of eighteen inches or, in rarer 

 cases, two feet. No special preparations are made for the 

 addition of the new story, and the birds do not even take 

 the trouble to remove an addled egg, should one remain in 

 the cavity from the previous season; they merely cover it 

 over with mud and build it into the structure. On the 

 cover of this book there is a picture of flamingoes in one of 

 their characteristic haunts, several of the tall nests and 

 others of the flat "dinner-plate" kind being represented. 



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