(_Phœnicopterus roseus_)
Flamingoes, of which there are several species, present us with one
of the most striking instances of adaptation to a particular mode of
life to be met with in the animal kingdom, more especially as the main
feature in this adaptation is developed in its full perfection only
when the bird is mature and takes to a special diet. In common with
other waders, the adult flamingo has an enormously long neck and legs,
and is thereby enabled to procure its food from depths inaccessible to
most other birds, although it is frequently content to search for food
in the shallows. Its distinctive structural peculiarity is, however,
the sharp downward flexure of the extremity of the beak, and more
especially that of the lower half. Such a beak appears at the first
glance quite unsuited for groping up food from the mud of marshes and
lagoons which form the favourite haunts of these stately birds; but
while thus engaged, flamingoes turn their heads the wrong way up, when
the beak at once becomes a most efficient ladle, admirably adapted for
collecting and holding the small spiral univalve molluscs of the genus
_Cerithium_ which in many districts form their chief food.
In the young flamingo, whose diet is of a different nature, the beak is
more or less normal in form.
Flamingoes, with certain relationships to the storks, appear to have
most affinity with ducks, geese, and swans; and it is curious to note
how like are the head and neck of a flamingo, if the beak were but
straightened out, to those of a swan, the resemblance extending in some
cases even to the colour of the beak,--red or orange at the base and
black at the tip.
White and scarlet, or crimson--the Easter colours--are the colours of
the flamingo, but the relative proportions of these vary according to
the species. The European flamingo--the subject of the Plate--whose
range extends from central Europe to the Canaries and the Cape Verd
Islands, and thence all over Africa, and eastwards to Lake Baikal,
India, and Ceylon, has, for instance, the greater part of the plumage
white or pinkish white with scarlet wing-coverts and black quills,
red legs, and the beak pink at the base and black at the tip. Much
more gorgeous is the tropical American _P. ruber_, ranging as far
south as Para and the Galapagos Islands, in which the general colour
of the plumage is light vermilion, with brighter wing-coverts, the
base of beak being yellow and the legs red. To the south of central
Peru, in Uruguay, and perhaps in Brazil this species is replaced by
_P. chilensis_, distinguished by the legs being grey with red joints,
while the black of the beak extends upwards above the bend. In all the
foregoing species a hind-toe is present, but this is lacking in two
other South American species, namely, _P. (Phœnicoparrus) andinus_, the
largest member of the family, of the Chilian and Bolivian Andes and
Argentina, and _P. (P.) jamesi_, of southern Peru and Chile, in both of
which the beak is yellow at the base and red in the middle, while the
legs are yellow in the former and red in the latter. Lastly, there is
_P. (Phœniconaias) minor_, of Africa, Madagascar, and India, which in
general appearance much resembles the European species.
[Illustration]
Although flamingoes spend much of their time in wading, they are also
good swimmers. Like geese and ducks, they associate in vast flocks, and
further evidence of their kinship to that group is afforded by their
loss of the power of flight during the height of the moulting season,
and likewise by their “gaggling” cries, which are curiously like those
of geese.
In the breeding-season flamingoes resort to lakes, salt-lagoons, or
the swamps in river-valleys, those of the Guadalquivir being one of
their favourite haunts in Europe. Bare shores are an essential element
in such breeding-colonies, for it is on these that the birds construct
their curious sugar-loaf mud-nests, which have a cup-like depression at
the summit for the reception of the one or two eggs, and vary in height
from two to fifteen inches according to the depth of the water. The
eggs, which are brooded by each sex in turn for a period of fully four
weeks, have bluish coloured shells, covered with a rough chalky crust.
When incubating, the bird sits with its legs bent beneath the body,
although it was long supposed that these hung down on the sides of the
nest.
Hundreds or even thousands of flamingoes may congregate in these
breeding-colonies; and there are few more beautiful sights in nature
than to see a flock of these splendid birds, especially the scarlet
American species, rise on the wing and display their full colouring and
plumage in the sunlight.