on Flamingos.



289



“ Molly urns,” which, being interpreted, is ‘ Herons.’ But those

sort of people would shoot anything from a Humming Bird to a

Condor.


I find my Flamingos do very well on grain, wheat, oats, etc.,

but they are loose on a good sized pond, in the mud of which they

evidently find a great deal of natural food. Once acclimatized

Flamingos are fairly hardy, but care must be taken in the winter

that they do not become frozen in to ice. Indeed, during very hard

weather, they are best in a shed, with a flooring of sawdust or peat

moss litter.


They are fond of bread, melox, etc. when once they take

to it, and some of the dried fish mentioned by Mr. Sich in his notes

on Wading Birds would no doubt be beneficial, mixed with the bread

in a bucket of water.


My Flamingos have been busily moulting during June and July,

all the black pinion feathers being shed at once, after the manner of

geese. Flamingos are classified between the Storks and the Geese,

and are peculiar in having most curiously shaped bills, high at the

base and abruptly bent down in the middle ; moreover, these birds

feed with the bill upside down, the lower mandible being uppermost

under the water. In the young, the beak is short and straight. As

is now well known, the Flamingo sits on her nest with her legs

doubled under her, though it was originally declared that the nest

was a structure of mud sufficiently high for the bird to sit straddle-

wise on it, with the legs down on each side !


There are at least four species of Flamingos to be found in

South America : —Plicenicopterus ruber , P. chilensis, P. andinus, and

P. jamesi.


P. chilensis of Peru and Uruguay has green-grey legs with

red joints, the black on the bill reaching above the bend.


P. andinus of the Andes of Bolivia, Chili, and Argentina is

the largest of the family.


Flamingos may be looked on as one of the most extraordinary

developments of evolution through untold ages.



