PHCENICOPTERUS. 
ridiculous miftake, the bird was imagined to be a native 
of Flanders.] The Flamingo ; a genus of birds of the 
order grail re. Generic charafters—Bill naked, toothed, 
bent as if broken ; noftrils linear ; feet four-toed, palmate, 
the membranes femicircular on the tore part; the hind 
toe not connected with the others. The birds of this 
genus combine the chambers of the anferes and grallaei 
They have long legs and neck; the bill is large; the 
upper mandible carinate above, and toothed on the edge ; 
lo'vver comprelfed, tranfverfely furrowed ; the noftrils are 
covered with a thin membrane. There are only two 
fpecies. 
i. Phcenicopterus rubra, the common red flamingo: 
quill-feathers black. This bird certainly prefents a lin¬ 
gular and confpicuous figure among the great waders. 
Scaliger compares it to the heron, and Gefner to the ftork ; 
remarking, as well as Willughby, the exceflive length of 
the {lender neck. When the flamingo has attained its 
full growth, fays Catefby, it is not much heavier than a 
wild duck, and is yet five feet high, and fometimes 
upwards of fix feet. The great differences in fize, 
noticed by authors, have a reference to the age, as well as 
the varieties which they have alfo remarked in the 
plumage. This is generally foft and filky, and walked 
with red tints of greater or lefs vivacity and extent: the 
great quills of the wing are conftantly black : the coverts, 
both the greater and lefs, the exterior and interior, are 
imbued with fine flame-colour; which fpreads and dilutes, 
by degrees, over the back and the rump, the breaft and 
the neck ; on the upper part of which, and on the head, 
the plumage is like, velvet down. The top of the head is 
naked ; the fkull feems to be raifed, and its throat dilated 
before, to receive the lower mandible, which is very broad 
at its origin. The two mandibles form a round and 
ffraight canal as far as their middle; after which they 
preferve the fttape of a broad gutter; and Dr. Grew, who 
has defcribed this bill with great accuracy, remarks alfo 
a filament within, under the upper mandible, and which 
divides it in the middle. It is black from its tip to 
where it bends, and, from thence to the root, it is White 
in the dead bird, but, in the living fubjeft, it feems liable 
to vary; fince Gefner afferts, that it is of a bright red, 
Aldrovandus that it is brown, Willughby that it is 
bluifti, and Seba that it is yellow’. “To a fmall round 
head, ((ays Dutertre,) is joined a large bill four inches 
long, half red, half black, and bent into the form of a 
fpoon.” The French academicians, who defcribe this 
bird under the name of becharu, from a fancied refem- 
blance of its bill to a ploughfhare, fay that its bill is of a 
pale red, and contains a thick flefliy tongue, which fills 
the cavity of the large fpoon of the lower mandible. 
Wormius alfo defcribes this extraordinary bill; and Al¬ 
drovandus remarks how much nature has fpo_rted in its 
conformation: Ray fpeaks of its ftrange figure. But 
none of them have examined it with fuch attention as to 
decide a point which we fhould be glad to afcertain, viz. 
whether, as many naturalifts allege, the upper mandible 
is moveable, while the lower is fixed ? 
Pliny feems to clafs this bird with the ftorks; and Seba 
has injudicioufly fuppofed, that it was ranked by the an¬ 
cients with the ibis. But it belongs to neither of thefe 
kinds. We may wonder that the name phcenicopterus 
occurs not in Ariftotle, though mentioned by Arifto- 
phanes, who ranges it among the marfli-birds. But it 
was rare, and perhaps foreign, in Greece. Heliodorus 
exprefsly fays, that the phcenicopterus inhabited the Nile : 
the old fcholiaft on Juvenal afferts, that it was abundant 
in Africa. Yet tliele birds feem not to remain conftantly 
in the hotteft climates; for fome are found in Italy, and 
a much greater number in Spain ; and a few have been 
feen in France. Thus it inhabits the countries of the 
fouth, and is found from the coafts of the Mediterranean 
to the extremity of Africa. Great numbers occur in the 
Cape de Verd iflands, according to Mandeflo, who over¬ 
rates the bulk of their body when he compares it to that 
Vol.XX. No. 1368. 
285 
of a fwan. Dampier met with fome neftsof thefe birds in 
the ifle of Sal. They principally inhabit the weftern pro¬ 
vinces of Africa, at Angola, Congo, and Biffago, where, 
from a fuperftitious refpedf, the negroes will not fuffer one 
of them to be killed; and they live undillurbed in the 
midlt even of the dwellings. De Brue fays, “ the flamin¬ 
goes are fo refpefted by the Mandingos of a village diftant 
half a league from Geves, that they are found in 
thoufands; and the inhabitants will not permit them to 
receive the lead injury. They leave them tranquil on the 
trees amidft their dwellings, without being incommoded 
by their cries, which, however, are heard a quarter of a 
league. The French, having killed fome of them in this 
afylum, were obliged to conceal them under the grafs, left 
the negroes (liould be prompted to revenge the death of a 
bird fo revered.” They occur alfo in the bay of Saldana, 
and in all the countries adjacent to the Cape of Good 
Hope, where they fpend the day on the coaft, and retire, 
in the evening, to the rank herbs which grow on the 
contiguous lands. 
The flamingo is undoubtedly a migratory bird, but 
vifits only the warm and temperate regions, and never 
penetrates to the northern trafts; fo that, if fome folitary 
ftragglers are found, at times, in our climes, they have 
only been driven thither in a ftorm. Salerne relates, as 
an extraordinary occurrence, that one was killed on the 
Loire. The hot countries are the feene of their migra¬ 
tions : and they have traverfed the Atlantic; for they 
are of the fmall number of birds that inhabit the tropical 
regions of both continents. They are feen in Valparaifo, 
at Conception, and at Cuba. They occur on the coaft of 
Venezuela, near the White Ifland, that of Aves, and that 
of Roche, which is a group of rocks. They are well 
known at Cayenne, where the natives of the country name 
them tococo; they fly in flocks on the fea-beacb, and they 
inhabit alio the Bahama iflands. Sir Hans Sloane ranks 
them among the birds of Jamaica. Dampier found them 
at Rio de la Hacha. They are extremely numerous at 
St. Domingo, in the Antilles, and the Ca-ribbee iflands, 
where they live in the little falt-pools, and the lagoons. 
They occur alfo in Peru, and as far as Chili. In ftiort, 
there are few parts of South America where navigators 
have not met with them. 
Thefe birds breed on the coaft of Cuba, and of the 
Bahama iflands, on the deluged (bores, and the low 
iflets, fuch as that of Aves, where Labat found them in 
the feafon of incubation. Their nefts are little heaps of 
miry foil, gathered from the marfhes, and raifed about 
twenty inches into a pyramid in the middle of the water, 
which conftantly walhes the bafe; the top is truncated, 
hollow, and fmooth, and, without any bed of feathers or 
herbs, receives the eggs, which the bird covers, fays 
Catefby, by fitting acrofs the hillock, its legs hanging 
down, like a man fitting on a ftool; fo that only the 
rump and lower belly are of fervice in the incubation. 
This Angular pofition it is obliged to adopt on account 
of the length of its legs, which could not be conveniently 
bent under it. Dampier gives a fimilar defeription of 
the mode of hatching in the ifland of Sal; and Bernardin 
de St. Pierre fays, “ When feveral of thefe birds are fitting 
at the fame time on their eggs, in the midft of a 1'wamp, 
you would take them, at a diftance, for the flames of a 
conflagration burfting from the bofom of the waters.” 
Studies of Nature. 
They never lay more than three eggs, and feldom fewer 
than two. The young ones cannot fly till they are al- 
moft full grown ; but will run prodigiously faft. The eggs, 
which are white, are as thick as thofe of a goofe, and 
fomewhat longer; the young begin to run a few days 
after they are hatched. The plumage is, at firft, of a light 
grey, and that colour becomes deeper in proportion as 
their feathers grow ; but it requires ten or twelve months 
before their body attains its full fize, and then theyaifurne 
their fine rofe-coloured tints. According to Catelby, 
tw’O years pafs before they acquire the whole of their 
4 D beautiful 
