256 AMERICAN FLAMINGO. 



the exception of one, for on turning round the lower end of the Key, 

 they spied our boat again, sailed away without flapping their wings, and 

 alighted about four hundred yards from us, and upwards of one hundred 

 from the shore, on a " soap flat" of vast extent, where neither boat nor 

 man could approach them. I however watched their motions until 

 dusk, when we reluctantly left the spot and advanced toward Indian 

 Key. Mr Logan then told me that these birds habitually returned to 

 their feeding-grounds toward evening, that they fed during the greater 

 part of the night, and were much more nocturnal in their habits than 

 any of the Heron tribe. 



When I reached Key West, my first inquiries, addressed to Dr 

 Benjamin Strobel, had reference to the Flamingoes, and I felt gra- 

 tified by learning that he had killed a good number of them, and that 

 he would assist us in procuring some. As on that Key they are fond 

 of resorting to the shallow ponds formerly kept there as reservou'S of 

 water, for the purpose of making salt, we visited them at different 

 times, but always without success ; and, although I saw a great num- 

 ber of them in the course of my stay in that country, I cannot even 

 at this moment boast of having had the satisfaction of shooting a single 

 individual. 



A very few of these birds have been known to proceed eastward of 

 the Floridas beyond Charleston in South Carolina, and some have been 

 procm-ed there within eight or ten years back. None have ever been 

 observed about the mouths of the Mississippi ; and to my great sur- 

 prise I did not meet with any in the course of my voyage to the Texas, 

 where, indeed, I was assured they had never been seen, at least as 

 far as Galveston Island. The western coast of Florida, and some 

 portions of that of Alabama, in the neighbourhood of Pensacola, are 

 the parts to which they mostly resort ; but they are said to be there 

 always extremely shy, and can be procured only by waylaying them in 

 the vicinity of their feeding-grounds toward evening, when, on one 

 occasion, Dr Strobel shot several in the course of a few hours. Dr 

 Leitner also procured some in the course of his botanical excursions 

 along the western coast of the Floridas, where he was at last murdered 

 by some party of Seminole Indians, at the time of our last disastrous 

 war with those children of the desert. 



Flamingoes, as I am informed, are abundant on the Island of Cuba, 

 more especially on the southern side of some of its shores, and where 



