170 
stayed to roots and bushes and to one of 
our boats, which was hauled out to wind- 
ward as an anchor for both tent and fly. 
Incidentally, it proved a capital tank. ‘he 
almost constant rains soon filled it, and we 
had an unlimited supply of fresh water dur- 
ing the eight days of our stay. 
A camp was not made, however, until 
we had investigated the flamingo colony. 
This time, when asked for the whereabouts 
of the birds, Peter pointed to a thin, pink 
strip distant a mile or more across the 
swash! Flamingos, surely, but were they 
nesting ? We lost no time in speculation, 
but started at once to investigate. Ten 
minutes’ wading through shallow water 
brought us so near the now greatly en- 
larged pink band that with a glass the birds 
could be seen unmistakably seated on their 
conical nests of mud, and with an utterly 
indescribable feeling of exultation we ad- 
vanced rapidly to view at short range this 
wonder of wonders in bird lie. 
At a distance of about three hundred 
yards, the wind being from us toward the 
birds, we first heard the honking notes of 
alarm—a wave of deep sourd. Soon the 
birds began to rise, standing on their nests, 
facing the wind, and waving their black- 
and-vermilion wings. As we came a little 
nearer, in stately fashion the birds began to 
move; uniformly, like a great body of 
troops, they stepped slowly forward, black 
pinions waving and trumpets sounding, 
and then, when we were still a hundred and 
fifty yards away, the leaders sprang into the 
air. File after file of the winged host fol- 
lowed. The very earth seemed to erupt 
birds, as flaming masses streamed heaven- 
ward. It was an appalling sight. One of 
the boatmen, with a gift for selecting 
graphic if inelegant terms, said it looked 
“like hell,” and the descriptionisapt enough 
to be set down without impropriety. 
The birds were now all in the air. At the 
moment I should have said that there were 
at least four thousand of them, but a sub- 
THE CENTURY 
MAGAZINE 
sequent census of nests showed that this 
number should be halved. They flew only 
a short distance to windward, then, swing- 
ing, with set wings sailed over us, a rush- 
ing, fiery cloud. To my intense relief, they 
alighted in a lagoon bordering the western 
edge of the rookery. 
Soon we were among an apparently in- 
numerable lot of close-set mud nests, each 
with its single egg, or, rarely, newly hatched 
chick, doubtless the first young flamingo 
ever seen in its nest by a naturalist. While 
we were standing, half dazed by the 
whole experience, the army of birds which 
had gathered in the lagoon rose, and with 
harsh honkings bore down on us. ‘The ac- 
tion was startling. ‘The birds, in close array, 
came toward us without a waver, and for 
a moment one might well have believed 
they were about to attack; but, with a 
mighty roar of wings and clanging of horns, 
they passed overhead, turned, and on set 
wings shot back to the lagoon. 
Fearing that birds ordinarily so shy 
might, in spite of the claims of parental 
instinct, desert their homes, we lost no time 
in preparing with branches a place near the 
border of the rookery in which my blind 
might be concealed the following day. 
This blind, it should be explained, is 
composed of an umbrella which, opened 
within a long bag of light material, be- 
comes, when attached by its handle to a 
rod driven in the ground, a circular tent 
affording perfect concealment for the bird- 
student and his camera. In conformance 
with Abbott Thayer’s law of protective 
coloring, it has been dyed darkest at the 
top, whence it fades from leaf-green to a 
gray at the bottom, an arrangement which, 
compensating for the unequal distribution 
of skylight, brings top and bottom into a 
uniform tone, and makes the whole affair 
so inconspicuous that, when surrounded in 
part by branches, it is virtually invisible. 
Into this blind I crawled the next morn- 
ing. The birds had left their nests with 
the same orderly, impressive sequence of 
movements shown the preceding after- 
noon, and had gathered in close array in 
the lagoon bordering the egg-dotted rook- 
ery stretching out before me. Mrs. Chap- 
man had gone back to camp. 
The interesting question now was, 
Would the birds return to their nests, the 
nearest of which were about thirty feet 
from me, or would the blind arouse their 
