4 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



Hume's collection there are none from the East of Bengal or Assam, 

 though from the latter place there is one skin marked " x' ju v. sk. 

 Assam " obtained by McClelland in the British Museum collection. 

 It is very common on the major part of the West Coast and extends 

 quite down to Ceylon, where Legge statos that it is seen in large 

 numbers both on the West and East Coast. Thence it extends north- 

 wards and is common in certain parts of Madras, but in Eastern 

 Bengal is a decidedly rare bird. I have once seen it during the cold 

 weather in the Sunderbands, and there are a few other recorded 

 instances. In the widely-known and shot-over Chilka Lake in Orissa 

 it is fairly frequently met with, though, I hear, less frequently and in 

 smaller numbers than formerly, probably owing to the lake being 

 more accessible to sportsmen now-a-days than it used to be. Elsewhere 

 in Bengal it is only a casual flock that is seen in the cold weather. 



Legge seems to have thought that the Flamingo bred in Ceylon ;, 

 but his ideas on this subject have never been confirmed, and it is un- 

 likely that it breeds anywhere within our limits, or anywhere nearer 

 than the northern shores of the Persian Gulf. 



Its principal breeding-places lie in Africa and in Asia, in Arabia and 

 Persia, where they collect during the breeding season in countless 

 numbers. It also breeds in Spain, and is said to do so on the Rhone 

 delta. Hume, and after him Barnes, in Vol. VI, No. 3, p. 285, have 

 commented on the curious and untidy habit these birds possess of 

 dropping eggs about in a casual sort of manner, and in this way a 

 good many have been found in India. 



Other ornithologists have noted this habit, and it seems to be one 

 common to the whole genus, as Barnes notes, having obtained eggs 

 thus which he considered belonged to the Lesser Flamingo. 



Again, my friend E. Hartert, when visiting Bonaire, came across 

 a colony of Flamingoes breeding ; and, though he could not approach 

 near enough to obtain specimens and satisfy himself as to the species, he 

 managed to visit the nesting-places, and he mentions that he obtained 

 two fresh eggs which were lying in the water. Here the birds do not 

 seem to have commenced breeding in earnest, and these eggs appear to 

 have been casually dropped by the bird into the water either before 

 the nest had been made to receive them or, more likely, before the 

 bird felt inclined to commence incubation. 



