Adjutants choose almost inaccessible pinnacles of rock on which to build their nests, though they sometimes nest in trees. From two to four white eggs are laid, from which, if all goes well, as many young, covered with fluffy white down, are hatched.
The Jabirus are distant relatives of, and scarcely inferior in size to, the Adjutants. There are three species, one occurring in the Indian Peninsula, New Guinea, and Australia, one in Africa, and one in South America. It is to this last species that the name Jabiru correctly applies. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that it is one of the handsomest of its tribe. The whole plumage is pure white, and the upper-parts are made additionally resplendent by an indescribable satin-like gloss. The beautiful whiteness of its plumage is enhanced by the fact that the head and neck, bill and feet, are jet-black. Some would give the palm of beauty to the African Saddle-billed Stork. Black and white, as in the American form, are the contrasting "colours"; but the plumage of the body, instead of being pure white, is plentifully enriched with black, with beautiful purple reflections.
Photo by D. Le Souef] [Melbourne.
FLAMINGOES.
In flight the long neck and legs are fully extended, giving the bird a very remarkable appearance.
More or less nearly allied to the Storks are several species familiar enough to the professional ornithologist, but not very well known generally. One of the rarest and most interesting of these is the Whale-headed or Shoe-billed Stork of the Nile, remarkable for its enormous boat-shaped bill. More common but equally interesting are the beautiful Flamingoes. Apart from the brilliancy of their colour, the most noticeable feature of these birds is the curious beak, which is bent downwards at a sharp angle, and provided on its inside with horny plates resembling those of the Ducks and Swans. The tongue of this bird, unlike that of the Stork Tribe generally, is thick and fleshy, and also resembles that of the duck.
The flamingo is the only member of the Stork Tribe which builds a mud-nest. Its foundation laid often in as much as 15 inches of water, and rising above the surface from 6 to 8 inches, with a diameter at the top of 15 inches, it forms a pile of no mean size. Strangely enough, though these birds are never so happy as when wading "knee" deep in water, yet after the construction of the nest the incubation of the eggs is delayed so long that before they are hatched the water has disappeared, leaving a burning plain of sun-baked mud. On the top of this nest the parent sits with its long neck neatly curled away among the back-feathers, with its long legs doubled up, and projecting behind her for some distance beyond the tail. Until quite recently it was believed that the bird incubated its eggs by sitting astride the nest, the length of the legs forbidding any other position: this has now been proved beyond cavil to be an entirely erroneous opinion.
Photo by Charles Knight] [Aldershot.