hat the birds inhabit the shallow lagoons
and bays having soft clayey bottoms. On the border of these the nest is
made by working the clay up into a mound which, in the first season, is
perhaps not more than a foot high and about eight inches in diameter at
the top and fifteen inches at the base. If the birds are unmolested
they will return to the same nesting place from year to year, each
season augmenting the nest by the addition of mud at the top, leaving
a slight depression for the eggs. He speaks of visiting the nesting
grounds where the birds had nested the previous year and their
mound-like nests were still standing. The birds nest in June. The number
of eggs is usually two, sometimes only one and rarely three. When three
are found in a nest it is generally believed that the third has been
laid by another female.

The stature of this remarkable bird is nearly five feet, and it weighs
in the flesh six or eight pounds. On the nest the birds sit with their
long legs doubled under them. The old story of the Flamingo bestriding
its nest in an ungainly attitude while sitting is an absurd fiction.

The eggs are elongate-ovate in shape, with a thick shell, roughened with
a white flakey substance, but bluish when this is scraped off. It
requires thirty-two days for the eggs to hatch.

The very fine specimen we present in BIRDS represents the Flamingo
feeding, the upper surface of the unique bill, which is abruptly bent in
the middle, facing the ground.

[Illustration: From col. C. E. Petford.
BLACK GROUSE.
Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]

[Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.
FLAMINGO.
Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]

THE BIRDS OF BETHLEHEM.

I.

I heard the bells of Bethlehem ring--
Their voice was sweeter than the priests';
I heard the birds of Bethlehem sing
Unbidden in the churchly feasts.

II.

They clung and swung on the swinging chain
High in the dim and incensed air;
The priest, with repetitions vain,
Chanted a never ending prayer.

III.

So bell and bird and priest I heard,
But voice of bird was most to me--
It had no ritual, no word,
And yet it sounded true and free.

IV.

I thought child Jesus, were he there,
Would like the singing birds the be