Flamingoes 271 



like a sitting swan, some heads resting on the breasts — all these 

 points were unmistaka])le. Indeed, as regards the disposition of 

 the legs in an incubating flamingo, no other attitude was possible 

 since, in the great majority of cases, the nests were barely raised 

 above the level of the mud-plateau. To sit astride on a JIat 

 surface is out of tlie question. 



Inexplicable it seems that the flamingo, a bird that spends 

 its life half knee-deep in water, should so long delay the period 

 of incubation. For long ere eggs could be hatched, and young 

 reared, the full summer heats of June and July would already 

 have set in, water would have utterly disappeared, and the 



flamino;oes be left stranded in a scorching desert of sun- 

 baked mud. 



Being unable ourselves to return to the marisma, we sent 

 Felipe back on May 26, when he obtained eggs — long, white, and 

 chalky, some specimens extremely rugged. Two is the number 

 laid in each nest. In 1872 we had obtained six eggs taken on 

 May 24, which may therefore, probably, be taken as the average 

 date of laying. There remains, nevertheless, the bare possibility 

 that eggs had been laid before our visit on May 9, but swept up 

 meanwhile by egg-raiders. 



The flamingo city "in being" above described was the first 

 seen by ornithologists, and the observations we were enabled 

 to make settled at last the position and mode of incul)atioii of 

 the flamino;o.' 



' Dampier's visit to the Cape rle Verde Islands took i)lace in Si'j)tembei-, wlicn, of course, 

 flamingoes would not be nesting;. 



