THE WADING AND SWIMMING BIRDS. 



181 



which are found in deeper waters and in the sea. The 

 latter are well provided for in their swimming apparatus, 

 and are good divers also. The Eider Duck, an inhabit- 

 ant of the northern regions of both hemispheres, furnish- 

 es the famous eider-down. The beautiful and graceful 

 Swans belong to the Duck family. They are inhabitants 

 of the east of Europe and Asia. Among the singular an- 

 imals of that country so fruitful in strange things, Aus- 

 tralia, there is a Swan, the whole of whose plumage is a 



jetty black. The 

 Flamingo, Figure 

 1 48, although it has 

 the long legs of a 

 Crane, and so is a 

 good wader ,is com- 

 monly reckoned in 

 the Duck family, 

 because its feet are 

 well webbed, and 

 its mandibles are 

 laminated as in the 

 case of the true 

 Ducks. It is found 

 in Africa, Asia, and 

 the warmer parts 

 of Europe. The 

 color of the plu- 

 mage is a deep 

 1 brilliant scarlet, ex- 

 cept the quill-feath- 

 ers, which are 

 black. When a 

 flock of these birds 

 stand hi a line, as 

 they often do, they look like a file of small soldiers. The 

 nest of the Flamingo is a conical heap made of mud, with 

 a hollow place in the top. When it sits on the nest its 

 long legs hang over the sides. 



Fig. 148. Flamingo. 



