Flamingoes' Nests 



BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



With photographs from nature by the author 



OT very many years ago, so little did we know about the 

 nesting habits of the Flamingo, it was commonly believed 

 that the incubating bird straddled the nest when hatching, 

 letting her legs hang down on either side! The observa- 

 tions of H. H. Johnston* and Abel Chapman* on the 

 European species {Pbaenicopterus antiquorum) and of Sir 

 Henry Blake t on the American species (P. rube?') proved the absurdity 

 of this belief by showing that incubating birds folded their legs under them 

 in the usual way, but we still know very little about the nesting habits of 

 these birds. 



Largely with the object of studying the Flamingo on its nesting grounds 

 I went to the Bahamas in April of the present year, accompanied by Mr. 

 Louis Agassiz Fuertes, the well-known artist. At Nassau we joined Mr. 

 J. Lewis Bonhote, of Cambridge, England. Mr. Bonhote was formerly 

 Governor's secretary in the Bahamas, when he acquired a knowledge of the 

 islands which was of the greatest value to us. He had already made a 

 reconnoissance in search of Flamingoes' nesting retreats, and, with the aid 

 of one of the few natives who was familiar with their whereabouts, had 

 succeeded in reaching a locality on Andros Island, at which the birds had 

 bred the previous year. 



It is not my purpose to recount here the various adventures which befel 

 us while cruising about the Bahamas in a very comfortable 50-ton schooner, 

 and I proceed at once to a description of our experiences with the 

 Flamingo. 



Flamingoes are late breeders. It is not improbable that the time of 

 their nesting is dependent upon the rainy season, which, in the Bahamas, 

 begins about the middle of May. Consequently we deferred our trip to 

 the locality previously visited by Mr. Bonhote until the middle of May. 

 Then we anchored our schooner at the mouth of a certain channel, and, 

 loading our small boats with needed supplies, rowed for the better part of a 

 day, pitching our tents toward evening on a low, slightly shelving shore 

 with a background of dense, scrubby vegetation. Exploration of the sur- 

 rounding country showed that it was regularly frequented by Flamingoes in 

 numbers during the nesting season. Within a radius of a mile no less than 

 eight groups of nests were discovered. They showed successive stages of 

 decay, from the old nests, which had almost disappeared before the action 

 of the elements, to those which were in an excellent state of preservation 



*The Ibis, 1881, p. i;j; 1883, p. 307 

 t Nineteenth Century, 1887, p. 886. 



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