350 



8 



backwards over the back, but with the neck nearly straight, and bent slightly forwards, jerking 

 at every stroke, apparently, of its feet, looking in fact as if it was staggering along hurriedly in 

 water just reaching up to its breast ; but the water was really 10 or 12 feet deep ; so that, if its 

 mode of progression could not fairly be called swimming, it was at any rate treading water." 



The flesh of the Flamingo has a nasty salty smell, and is scarcely fit for food, though this 

 bird is generally very fat, the fat being of an orange-colour and very soft, almost liquid. The 

 tongue, however, was highly esteemed by the ancients, and was considered to be a great 

 delicacy. It is very large, and appears to consist of a number of cells infiltrated with fat ; and 

 it is with difficulty that one can cut it from the lower jaw without damaging it. 



Although the Flamingo has bred very numerously and still breeds in some parts of Southern 

 Europe, there is, so far as I know, no good and full account of its breeding-habits. Crespon 

 gives some particulars of its breeding in Gard, but says that it makes no nest. There is, how- 

 ever, a most excellent account, published as far back as 1729, by Captain William Dam pier, 

 which I cannot do better than transcribe. Captain Dampier, referring to his visit to one of the 

 Cape-Verd Islands, says (Collect, of Voyages, i. pp. 70, 71), " I saw a few Flamingos, which is 

 a sort of large fowl, much like a Heron in shape, but bigger, and of a reddish colour. They 

 delight to keep together in great companies, and feed in mud or ponds, or in such places where 

 there is not much water. They are very shy ; therefore it is hard to shoot them. Yet I have 

 lain obscured in the evening near a place where they resort, and with two more of my company 

 have killed fourteen of them at once — the first shot being made while they were standing on the 

 ground, the other two as they rose. They build their nests in shallow ponds, where there is 

 much mud, which they scrape together, making little hillocks, like small islands, appearing out 

 of the water, a foot and a half high from the bottom. They make the foundation of these 

 hillocks broad, bringing them up tapering to the top, where they leave a small hollow pit 

 to lay their eggs in; and when they either lay their eggs or hatch them, they stand all the 

 while not on the hillock but close by it, with their legs on the ground and in the water, resting 

 themselves against the hillock, and covering the hollow nest upon it with their rumps ; for 

 their legs are very long ; and building thus as they do upon the ground they could neither 

 draw their legs conveniently into their nests, nor sit down upon them otherwise than by resting 

 their whole bodies there, to the prejudice of their eggs or their young, were it not for this 

 admirable contrivance, which they have by natural instinct. They never lay more than two 

 eggs, and seldom fewer. The young ones cannot fly until they are almost full-grown, but will 

 run prodigiously fast ; yet we have taken many of them. The flesh of both young and old is lean 

 and black, yet very good meat, tasting neither fishy nor any way unsavoury. Their tongues are 

 large, having a large knob of fat at the root, which is an excellent bit, a dish of Flamingos' 

 tongues being fit for a prince's table." 



I possess several eggs of this Flamingo from Spain and Algeria, which are white in colour, 

 the surface being chalky ; and in size and shape they resemble eggs of the common Wild Goose, 

 but are, as a rule, rather more elongated. 



The specimens figured are an adult male from Sardinia, in my own collection, and a young 

 bird in the collection of Canon Tristram. 



