xxviri 
BEAKS 
351 
Zambesi in 1853 : lie gives can interesting account of 
their nesting habits. The nests are only little hollows 
on the sand-banks without any cattempts at conceal¬ 
ment. The young are more helpless than the stork in 
the fable with the flat dishes, and must have everything 
conveyed into their mouth by the parents. 
Ornithologists have often argued among themselves 
whether flamingoes are long-legged ducks or duck-billed 
storks : this question has never been settled. No one 
can deny that these long-legged cand long-necked birds 
are particularly attractive on account of their curious 
shape, their beautiful coloration, and the strange 
modification of their beaks which enables them to 
dabble in the mud and .sift out the nutritious particles 
like ducks. When the duck is busy with the mud, the 
bill is so arranged that the lower half is lowermost; 
in the case of the flamingo, the terminal half of the 
beak is bent at such an angle that when engaged in 
mud-sifting, or in preening their feathers, the upper half 
of the beak is lowermost and the upper half of the 
beak fits into the lower, which is the reverse of the 
conditions found in birds generally. The odd sluape of 
a flamingo’s head cand its appcarent clumsiness on 
the end of a long neck reminds me of a golf-club. 
The long neck and legs of the flamingo appear to 
some observers as awkward appendages to this bird. 
This is not the case. When flamingoes fly, the neck is 
stretched out in front and the legs beliiud, so that in 
full flight the head, neck, body, and legs form one 
straight line. The birds arise with difficulty from the 
marshes, uttering their kronk-kronk-kronk like a 
bronchitic fog-horn. F'lamingoes appear awkward when 
they alight in the marsh, letting down their long legs 
and drawing them up again as if ashamed of possessing 
such things, like dainty young ladies in a drawing-room 
who have recently been put into long skirts and 
petticoats. 
Many questions have been asked concerning the 
