Volume Ii Part 22 (1/2)

_Description._--Hind toe present. Plumage rosy red; wing-coverts crimson; wing-feathers black; bill pale yellowish red, apical half black; feet dark violet-grey: whole length 390 inches, wing 150, tarsus 110. _Female_ similar, but smaller.

_Hab._ Southern portions of South America.

The Argentine Flamingo inhabits the whole of the Argentine country, down to the Rio Negro in the south, where I found it very abundant. The residents told me of a breeding-place there--a shallow salt-lake--which, however, had been abandoned by the birds before my visit. The nest there, as in other regions, was a small pillar of mud raised a foot or eighteen inches above the surface of the water, and with a slight hollow on the top; and I was a.s.sured by people who had watched them on their nests that the incubating bird invariably sits with the hind part of the body projecting from the nest, and the long legs dangling down in the water, and not tucked up under the bird.

On the Rio Negro I found the birds most abundant in winter, which surprised me, for that there is a movement of Flamingoes to the north in the autumn I am quite sure, having often seen them pa.s.sing overhead in a northerly direction in the migrating-season. I have also found the young birds, in the grey plumage, at this season in the marshes near to Buenos Ayres city, hundreds of miles from any known breeding-place. Probably the birds in the interior of the country, where the cold is far more intense than on the sea-coast, go north before winter, while those in the district bordering on the Atlantic have become stationary.

The Flamingo has a curious way of feeding: it immerses the beak, and by means of a rapid continuous movement of the mandibles pa.s.ses a current of water through the mouth, where the minutest insects and particles of floating matter are arrested by the teeth. The stomach is small, and is usually found to contain a pulpy ma.s.s of greenish-coloured stuff, mixed with minute particles of quartz. Yet on so scanty a fare this large bird not only supports itself, but becomes excessively fat. I spent half a winter in Patagonia at a house built on the borders of a small lake, and regularly every night a small flock of Flamingoes came to feed in the water about 200 yards from the back of the house. I used to open the window to listen to them, and the noise made by their beaks was continuous and resembled the sound produced by wringing out a wet cloth.

They feed a great deal by day, but much more, I think, by night.

Where they are never persecuted they are tame birds, and when a flock is fired into and one bird killed, the other birds, though apparently much astonished, do not fly away. They are silent birds, but not actually dumb, having a low hoa.r.s.e cry, uttered sometimes at the moment of taking flight; also another cry which I have only heard from a wounded bird, resembling the gobbling of a turkey-c.o.c.k, only shriller. They are almost invariably seen standing in the water, even when not feeding, and even seem to sleep there; on land they have a very singular appearance, their immense height, in proportion to their bulk, giving them an appearance amongst birds something like that of the giraffe amongst mammals. To the lakes and water-courses in the midst of the grey scenery of Patagonia they seem to give a strange glory, while standing motionless, their tall rose-coloured forms mirrored in the dark water, but chiefly when they rise and pa.s.s in a long crimson train or phalanx, flying low over the surface.

333. PHNICOPTERUS ANDINUS, Philippi.

(ANDEAN FLAMINGO.)

+Phnicopterus andinus+, _Phillipi, Reise d. d. Wuste Atacama_, p.

164, tt. iv., v.; _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 127; _Scl. P. Z.

S._ 1886, p. 399; _Burm. P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 364 (Cordilleras of N.-West).

_Description._--Hind toe absent. Plumage rosy white; lower neck and breast carmine; wings scarlet, with the tips of the quills black; bill at the base yellowish stained with red; apical half black; feet yellow: whole length 350 inches, wing 160, tarsus 90. _Female_ similar, but smaller.

_Hab._ Andes of Bolivia and Northern Chili.

The Andean Flamingo, which is at once distinguishable from _P.

ignipalliatus_ by the complete absence of the hind toe, is stated by Dr.

Burmeister, on the authority of Herr Schickendantz, to be found on the north-western frontiers of the Argentine Republic, on the lagunes of the eastern valleys between the Cordilleras and the adjacent mountains.

Order X. ANSERES.

Fam. x.x.xIX. PALAMEDEIDae, or SCREAMERS.

This singular Neotropical form is even more isolated than the Flamingo and more difficult to place satisfactorily in a linear series. It seems, however, that it is best arranged near the Anatidae, as first suggested by Mr. Parker[7], and that it may with least inconvenience be const.i.tuted an aberrant family of the Order Anseres.

[7] _Cf._ Proc. Zool. Soc. 1863, p. 511.

Besides the typical form _Palamedea_ (with one species found in Amazonia and the interior of Brazil) the present family contains only one other genus--_Chauna_--in which the head carries a feather-crest instead of the long h.o.r.n.y wattle of _Palamedea_. One species of _Chauna_ is met with in Argentina, the only other known species (_C. derbiana_) being confined to Colombia and Venezuela.

334. CHAUNA CHAVARIA (Linn.).

(CRESTED SCREAMER.)

+Palamedea chavaria+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 506 (Parana).

+Chauna chavaria+, _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 128; _iid. P. Z.