A1I0NG THE FLAMINGOES. 105 



lovely specimens ; during two mornings devoted to shooting 

 them, we bagged eight, six adults in rich rosy plumage, 

 and two immature. Flamingoes are always shy and 

 watchful birds, and their great height gives them a com- 

 manding view of threatening dangers : but there are 

 degrees in intensity of wildness, and despite the unques- 

 tionable difficulty of flamingo-shooting, we would certainly 

 not place these long-necked birds in the first rank among 

 impracticable wild-fowl. Wild geese, for example, many of 

 the duck-tribe, and nearly all the larger raptores far exceed 

 them in incessant vigilance and downright astuteness. 

 Flamingoes, however, will not, as a rule, permit of approach 

 by the ordinary Spanish method of the stalking-horse, or 

 cabresto : while the treacherous pony is still two gunshots 

 away, the warning croak of the sentries is given, and at 

 once the whole herd start to walk away, opening out their 

 ranks as they move off. The method we found most 

 effective to secure them was by partially surrounding a 

 herd with a line of mounted men, who rode far out beyond 

 them and then drove them over our two guns, each con- 

 cealed behind his horse and crouching knee-deep in water. 

 Of all the dirty work that wild-fowling in its many forms 

 necessitates, this flamingo-driving takes the palm. It is 

 mud-larking pure and simple, man, horse, and gun alike 

 encased in a clinging argillaceous covering like the street- 

 Arab amphibians below London Bridge. 



It is a fine sight to see a big flight of flamingoes, say 

 five hundred, coming well in to the gun — entrando bien a 

 la escopeta ! The whole sky is streaked with columns of 

 strange forms, and the still air resounds with the babel of 

 discordant croaks and cries. How wondrously they 

 marshal those long uniform files, bird behind bird without 

 break or confusion, and how precisely do those thousand 

 black wing-points beat in rapid regular unison ! Flamingoes 

 are not " hard " birds : their feathers being loose and open, 

 and the extremely long necks a specially vulnerable part, 

 they may be brought down from a considerable height 

 even with small shot. One evening, while collecting 

 specimens of small birds on the open marsh, the writer 



