Flamingoes 271 
like a sitting swan, some heads resting on the breasts—all these 
points were unmistakable. Indeed, as regards the disposition of 
the legs in an incubating flamingo, no other attitude was possible 
since, in the great majority of cases, the nests were barely raised 
above the level of the mud-plateau. To sit astride on a flat 
surface is out of the question. 
Inexplicable it seems that the flamingo, a bird that spends 
its life half knee-deep in water, should so long delay the period 
of incubation. For long ere eggs could be hatched, and young 
reared, the full summer heats of June and July would already 
have set in, water would have utterly disappeared, and the 
flamingoes be left stranded in a scorching desert of sun- 
baked mud. 
Being unable ourselves to return to the marisma, we sent 
Felipe back on May 26, when he obtained eges—long, white, and 
chalky, some specimens extremely rugged. Two is the number 
laid in each nest. In 1872 we had obtained six eggs taken on 
May 24, which may therefore, probably, be taken as the average 
date of laying. There remains, nevertheless, the bare possibility 
that eggs had been laid before our visit on May 9, but swept up 
meanwhile by egg-raiders. 
The flamingo city “in being” above described was the first 
seen by ornithologists, and the observations we were enabled 
to make settled at last the position and mode of incubation of 
the flamingo.’ 
1 Dampier’s visit to the Cape de Verde Islands took place in September, when, of course, 
flamingoes would not be nesting. 
