The Flamingo has a curious way of feeding: it immerses the beak, and by means of a rapid continuous movement of the mandibles passes 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 mass 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 hoarse 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-cock, 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 pass in a long crimson train or phalanx, flying low over the surface.
[333.] PHŒNICOPTERUS ANDINUS, Philippi.
(ANDEAN FLAMINGO.)
Phœnicopterus andinus, Phillipi, Reise d. d. Wüste 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 35·0 inches, wing 16·0, tarsus 9·0. 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.