156 BAHAMA BIRD-LIFE 



also afford it a home where, in the absence of all other pre- 

 daceous animals, man appears to be its only enemy. 



The Bahamas, therefore, are not only the best but the 

 nearest ground in which the American naturalist may hope 

 to study the Flamingo during the season of reproduction. 

 Indeed, it was in the Bahamas that C. J. Maynard, in 1884, 

 and Sir Henry Blake, in 1887, first reported from actual ob- 

 servation, the inaccuracy of the story that, Flamingos 

 "straddle" their nests with their legs dangling on each side 

 — a myth which, originating with Dampier, in 1669, had per- 

 sisted for nearly two hundred years, in default of more defi- 

 nite information. At about the same time, Abel Chapman 

 and Lord Lilford, through their explorations in Spain, re- 

 lieved the European species from the same awkward posi- 

 tion, which it had held — in natural history literature, at 

 least — for so long a period. None of these naturalists, how- 

 ever, appears to have established intimate relations with 

 the Flamingo. Their brief observations were made either 

 from a distance or when the birds had been frightened from 

 their nests. They were not so fortunate as to discover 

 young Flamingos, nor did they attempt to use the camera. 



It was in the spring of 1902 that I first went to the Ba- 

 hamas in search of Flamingos. A plan long in mind then 

 matured under exceptionally favorable circumstances, and 

 the story of this and a succeeding expedition of 1904, as told 

 in ' ' The Century ' ' for December of the last named year, ap- 

 pears to have aroused an interest which possibly warrants 

 the addition of certain details here. 



On April 22, 1902, with J. Lewis Bonhote, Mrs. Bonhote, 

 Mrs. Chapman, Louis Fuertes and a crew of seven negroes, 

 I sailed from Nassau in the 60-foot schooner " Estrella " 

 bound for Inaugua. As a former secretary to the governor 

 of the Bahamas, Mr. Bonhote had enjoyed exceptional op- 

 portunities to secure information which proved of the first 

 importance. Unfortunately our plan to visit Inaugua was 

 prevented by an attack of measles which, on the third day 



