GENUS 87. PHCENICOPTERUS. FLAMINGO. 
SPECIES. P. RUBER. 
RED FLAMINGO. 
[Plate LX VI.— Fig. 4.] 
/.e Flammant, Briss. vi, p. 533, pi. 47, fig. 1. — Buff, viii, 27.475, 
pi. 39. PI. Enl. 63. — Lath. Syn. iii, p. 299. — .irct. Zool. JVo. 
422. — Catesby, I, pi. 73, 74. — Peale’s Museum, JVo. 3545, bird 
of the first year; JVb. 3546, bird of the second year. 
This very singular species being occasionally seen on the 
southern frontiers of the United States, and on the peninsula of 
East Florida, where it is more common, has a claim to a niche 
in our Ornithological Museum, although the author regrets that 
from personal observation he can add nothing to the particulars 
of its history, already fully detailed in various European works. 
From the most respectable of these. The Synopsis of Dr. Lath- 
am, he has collected such particulars as appear authentic and 
interesting. 
‘‘This remarkable bird has the neck and legs in a greater 
disproportion than any other bird, the length from the end of 
the bill to that of the tail is four feet two or three inches, but 
to the end of the claws measures sometimes more than six feet. 
The hill is four inches and a quarter long, and of a construction 
different fi’om that of any other bird; the upper mandible very 
thin and flat, and somewhat moveable; the under thick, both 
of them bending downwards from the middle; the nostrils are 
linear, and placed in a blackish membrane; the end of the bill 
as far as the bend is black, from thence to the base reddish yel- 
low, round the base quite to the eye covered with a flesh col- 
oured cere; the neck is slender, and of a great length; the tongue 
large, fleshy, filling the cavity of the bill, furnished with twelve 
or more hooked papillse on each side, turning backwards; the 
