SPOONBILLS. 125 
     
    
   
   
    
     This species rarely occurs east of the Mississippi Valley. Its habits 
     
     are said to resemble those of the preceding species, “ but its cry is 
     
     very different, resembling the notes of a French horn and being very 
     
     sonorous.” 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Wnoormo SWAN (179. Olor cygnus) is an Old World species which 
     
     sometimes is found in Greenland. It differs from either of our Swans in 
     
     having the “ basal portion of the bill and entire lores yellow in the adult.” 
     
    
   
   
    
     ORDER ODONTOGLOSSE. LAMELLIROSTRAL 
     
     GRALLATORES. 
     
    
   
   
    
     FAMILY PHOENICOPTERIDIE. FLAMINGOES. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The seven species included in this family are distributed through- 
     
     out the tropics. Five species are American, of which one reaches our 
     
     southern border in Florida. Flamingoes are gregarious at all seasons. 
     
     They are rarely found far from the seacoasts, and their favorite re- 
     
     sorts are shallow bays or vast mud flats which are flooded at high 
     
     water. In feeding, the bill is pressed downward into the mud, its pe- 
     
     culiar shape making the point then turn upward. The ridges along 
     
     its sides, as in the bills of Ducks, serve as strainers through which are 
     
     forced the sand and mud taken in with the food. 
     
    
   
   
    
     182. Phcanicopterus ruber (Linn) FLAMINGO. (See Fig. 18.) 
     
     Ad.—Beautifu1 rosy vermilion. scapulurs and under parts somewhat paler, 
     
     flanks car-mine, primaries and secondaries black; bill yellowish black at the 
     
     tip. Im.-“ Grayish white, the wings varied with grayish and dusky” 
     
     (Ridgw.). L.,45-oo; W.,16-25; Tar.,12'50; 13.,5-50. 
     
    

    
     Range—Atlantic coasts of tropical and subtropical America; resident in 
     
     southwestern Florida (Monroe County); casual along the Gulf coast to Texas; . 
     
     accidental in South Carolina. 
     
    

    
     Nest, in mud flats, at truncate cone of mud ten to twenty inches in height, 
     
     hollowed on top. Eggs, two, soiled whitish with a chalky deposit, 3‘55 x 2'20. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Flamingo is resident in the United States only in the vicinity 
     
     of Cape Sable, Fla., Where in 1890 Mr. W. E. 'D. Scott observed a flock 
     
     of about a thousand birds (The Auk, vii, 1890, pp. 221—226). 
     
    
   
   
    
     ORDER HERODIONES. HERONS, STORKS, IBISES, 
     
     ETC. 
     
     FAMILY PLATALEIDIE. SPOONBILLS. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Spoonbills inhabit the warmer parts of the world. Only one 
     
     of the five or six species is found in America. They frequent the