1 68 The Stork-like Birds 



imposing spectacle, the long files vividly suggesting a company of scarlet-coated 

 soldiers. When migrating or when forced by alarm to take flight, they still hold 

 to the long lines or V-shaped parties. "If the color on the water was novel," 

 says Scott, ' ' that of a flock while in the air was truly surprising, a cloud of flame- 

 colored pink, like the hues of a brilliant sunset." Hume, who saw them on the 

 lakes of Sind, says that "to see one of these enormous flocks rise suddenly 

 when alarmed is a wonderful spectacle; as you approach them, so long as they 

 remain on the water at rest, they look simply like a mass of faintly rosy snow. A 

 rifle is fired, and then the exposure of the upper and under coverts of the wing 

 turns the mass into a gigantic, brilliantly rosy scarf, waving to and fro in mighty 

 folds as it floats away." 



On Lake Hannington, in the eastern province of the Uganda Protectorate, Sir 

 Harry Johnston states that "it is no exaggeration to say that there must be close 

 upon a million Flamingos (P. minor). These birds breed on a flat plain of mud 

 about a mile broad at the north end of the lake, where their nests, in the form of 

 little mounds of mud, appear like innumerable mud-hills. The birds, having 

 hitherto been entirely unmolested by man, are quite tame. The adult bird has 

 a body of rosy pink, the color of sunset clouds. The beak is scarlet and purple; 

 the legs deep rose-pink inclining to scarlet. Apparently the mature plumage is 

 not reached until the birds are about three years old. The young Flamingos 

 very soon attain the same size as the rosy adults; but their plumage, when they are 

 full grown, is first gray- white and then the color of a pale tea-rose, before it attains 

 its full sunset glory. On the north coast of the lake the belt of Flamingos must 

 be nearly a mile broad from the edge of the lake outward. Seen from above, this 

 mass of birds on its shoreward side is gray-white, then becomes white in the 

 middle, and has a lakeward ring of the most exquisite rose-pink, the reason being 

 that the birds on the outer edge of the semicircle are the young ones, while those 

 farthest out in the lake are the oldest. It is not an easy matter to make the birds 

 take to flight. When they do so suddenly and the shallow water is disturbed, the 

 stench which arises is sickening. The noise from these birds can be heard for 

 nearly a mile. The kronk, kronk, kronk, of the million, mingled with the hiss- 

 ings, squitterings, and splashings and the swish-swish-swish of those who are 

 starting in flight, combine to make a tumult of sound in the presence of which one 

 has to shout to one's companion to be heard. It is curious to waich the ungainly 

 motions of these birds when they wish to rise in the air. Their flight has to be 

 preceded by an absurd gallop through the mud before they can lift themselves on 

 their wings." 



