is to be met with, where it establishes a colony, in quite large numbers, and, in the report I have frequently referred to on wild birds that visit the Giza Zoological Gardens, it is stated that “Night Herons begin to arrive during August, winter here, and leave during the spring months. A few individuals, however, are seen throughout the summer. The number of these birds, which spend the daytime in the gardens, has greatly increased during the last ten years. 108 were counted on January 15, 1900; 360 on December 11, 1902. At present it is impossible to count them.”
All day long it sits moped up, out of the direct rays of the sun, in the centre of a mass of overhanging foliage, and only wakes up when most other birds are just falling to sleep. It feeds on fish, frogs, and even water-beetles and insects.
THE FLAMINGO
Phoenicopterus antiquorum
Arabic, Basharoush
On the head, neck, and body, in the adult, a delicate coral pink tints all the white: in younger birds these parts are pure white; large wing-feathers black, all the rest various tones of red, from a delicate rose to the deepest crimson; in young birds the wings are of an ashy brown; legs and base of bill in the adult a pink with a somewhat leaden hue; in young birds legs leaden; tip of bill black; eyes, straw-yellow. Total length, 45 inches.
IF it were not for zoological collections few of us would be as familiar with the form of this strange bird as we are—for though there are thousands and thousands of them in Egypt, it is generally only seen when flying in great flocks high overhead, and it does not often give a chance of a close inspection. But owing to its peculiarities it is always a favourite, and young as well as old are interested in its extraordinary length of leg and neck, and charmed with its brilliant rosy-red plumage, so that all know something of its appearance if they do not know much of its life-history. The Flamingo loves most of all shallow water, and lives nearly all its days in the great brackish lakes of Lower Egypt.
