3 ol FLAMINGO. 



Flamingoes for the moft part keep together in flocks ; and now 

 and then are feen in great numbers together, except in breeding- 

 time. Dampier mentions having, with two more in company, 

 killed fourteen at once; but this was effected by fecreting them- 

 felves, for they are very my birds, and will by no means fuffer 

 any one to approach openly near enough to fhoot them *. Kol- 

 ben obferves that they are very numerous at the Cape, keeping in 

 the day on the borders of the lakes and rivers, and lodging them- 

 felves of nights in the long grajs on the hills. They are like- 

 wife common to various places in the warmer parts of America^ 

 frequenting the fame latitudes as in other quarters of the world } 

 being met with in Peru and Chili, Cayenne f, and the coaft of 

 Brafil, as well as the various iflands of the Weft Indies. Sloane 

 found them in Jamaica $ but particularly at the Bahama iflands s 

 and that of Cuba, where they breed. When feen at a dif- 

 tance they appear as a regiment of Joldiers, being ranged along^ 

 fide one another on the borders of the rivers fearching for 

 food, which chiefly confifts of fmall fifli %, or the eggs of them, 

 and of water-infetls, which they fearch after by plunging in 

 the bill and part of the head, from time to time trampling 

 with their feet to muddy the water, that their prey may be raifed 

 from the bottom. In feeding are faid to twifl the neck rh fuch a 

 manner that the upper part of the bill is applied to the ground § : 

 during this one of them is faid to ftand centinel, and the moment 



* Davies talks of the gunner difguifing himfelf in an Ox's hide, and by this 

 means getting within gun-mot. — Hiji. Barbad. p. 83. 

 t Called there by the name of Tococo. 

 X Svna.\\Jbell-fJb.—Ge/ner. 

 § Linnc.i, Brijfon, 



8 he 



