164 
afford it a home where, in the absence of 
all other predaceous animals, man alone is 
its only enemy. 
The Bahamas, therefore, are not only the 
best but the nearest ground in which the 
American naturalist may hope to study the 
flamingo during the season of reproduc- 
tion. Indeed, it was in the Bahamas that 
C. J. Maynard, in 1884, and Sir Henry 
Blake, in 1887, first reported, from actual 
observation, the inaccuracy of the story 
that flamingos “straddle” their nests with 
their legs dangling on each side—a myth 
which, originating with Dampier, in 1699, 
had persisted for nearly two hundred years 
in default of more definite information. At 
about the same time Abel Chapman and 
Lord Lilford, through their explorations in 
Spain, relieved the European species from 
the awkward position it had held, in natu- 
ral history literature, at least. None of 
these naturalists, however, appears to have 
established intimate relations with the 
flamingo. Their brief observations were 
made either from a distance or when the 
birds had been frightened from their nests. 
They were not so fortunate as to discover 
young flamingos, nor did they attempt to 
use the camera. To this day, therefore, our 
natural histories are either silent or inac- 
curate concerning the flamingos’ domestic 
affairs. 
THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 
It was in the spring of 1902 that I first 
went to the Bahamas in the interests of the 
American Museum of Natural History to 
form the acquaintance of flamingos. A 
plan long in mind then matured under ex- 
ceptionally favorable circumstances. Join- 
ing forces with a former secretary of the 
governor of the islands, I was fortunately 
possessed of an ally whose position gave 
him unusual means of securing information 
and of reconnoitering such localities as 
seemed likely to yield the desired results. 
Nevertheless, our expedition, so far as our 
main purpose was concerned, was a failure. 
Flamingos we found in numbers, and even 
villages of the adobe nests that they had 
occupied only a year or two previously ; 
but we did not discover an inhabited city. 
One of the deserted villages that we ex- 
amined covered an area one hundred yards 
long by about thirty yards wide, and con- 
tained, approximately, two thousand of the 
little mud cones which the flamingo erects 
asanest. The site selected was an exposed 
mud flat with virtually no vegetation nearer 
than four hundred yards. Seeing this 
frame, I knew I should never be content 
until I had also seen the picture it once 
held. Indeed, during the ensuing two 
years there was rarely a day when a vision 
of the glories of a flamingo city was not in 
more or less full possession of the field of 
Drawu by Harry kenu trom a puvctograph, 
Half-tone plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick 
THE FLAMINGO CAMP 
