A Flamingo City.

Otago Witness, Issue 2664, 5 April 1905, Page 68

A Flamingo City.

Thero is an article in the Century Magazine, by Mr Frank M. Chapman, associate curator in the American Museum of Natural History, in which he records a recent visit to a flamingo city. Having desciibed early disappointments of deserted nesting grounds in the Bahamas, he gives an account of the appearance of an occupied "city" which the expedition was fortunate enough to discover.

Ten minutes'- wading ' through shallow water brought us, lie writes, so near the now greatly-enlarged pink band that, with a glass, the birds could be seen seated on their conical nests of mud, and with an utterly indescribable feeling of exultation we advanced rapidly to view at phort range this wonder of wonders in bird life. At a distance of about 300 yards, the wind being from us toward the birds, we first heard the honking notes of alarm — a wave of deep sound. Soon tho 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, wl en wo were still 150 yards away, the leaders sprang into the air. File aftar file of the winged host followed. The very earth seemed io erupt birds, es flaming masses streamed heavenward. It was an appalling sight. . . . The birds were now all in the air. At the moment I should have said there were at least 4000 of them, but a subsequent census of nests showed that this number should be halved. They flew only a short distance to windward, then, swinging with set wings, sailed ovev us, a rushing, fiery cloud. To my intense relief they alighted in a lagoon bordering the western edge of the rookery. Soon we were among an apparently innumerable lot of close set mud nests, each with its single egg, or, rarely, newly-hatched cinck, 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 tha lagoon rose, and, with harsh henkings, bore down on us. The action iv<i,3 startling. The birds, in close array, came towards us without a waver, and for. n, moment one mi^ht well hava believed they were about to attack; but, with a mighty loar of wings and olangin,gi of hoVns, they passed overhead, turned l , and, on set wing", shot back to the lagoon.

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