The flamingo is a bird of the genus Phoenicopterus formerly placed in the order of wading birds, but now generally ranked among the Natatores or swimmers, and constituting a family Phoenicopteridae, allied to the Anatidae or ducks. Its body is rather smaller than that of the stork, but owing to the great length of the neck and legs it stands from 5 to 6 feet high. The beak is naked, lamellate at the edges, and bent as if broken; the feet are palmated and four-toed.
The common flamingo (Phoenicopterus antiquorum) occurs abundantly in various parts of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, etc. It is entirely pink, except the quill-feathers, which are jet-black. The tongue is fleshy, and one of the extravagances of the Romans during the later period of the empire was to have dishes composed solely of flamingoes' tongues. The flamingoes live and migrate in large flocks, frequenting desert sea-coasts and salt-marshes. They are extremely shy and watchful. While feeding they keep together, drawn up artificially in lines, which at a distance resemble those of an army; and, like many other gregarious birds, they employ some to act as sentinels, for the security of the rest.
Their food comprises molluscs, spawn, crustaceans, etc, which they fish up by means of their long neck, turning their head in such a manner as to take advantage of the crook in their beak. They breed in companies in inundated marshes, raising the nest to a certain height by heaping up the mud with their feet into a small hillock, which is concave at the top. In this the female lays her eggs, and it was formerly believed that she sat on them with her legs hanging down, like those of a man on horseback. But the nests are not so high as to allow of this, and the birds really sit with their legs doubled up under them. An American species of flamingo is Phoenicopterus ruber. Research Flamingo
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Abbreviations
Nature
Research Flamingo
