Flamingo

In April 1896, I saw six FLAMINGOS flying over Biscayne Bay, Florida, and got within one hundred yards of a lone bird on the bank of Caesar's Creek. The flying birds were a thin drift of pink against a cobalt sky, headed south — perhaps bound for South America! The only colony in North America is under E. W. Forsythe's care. This remarkable man has given years to save Flamingos from extinction, chiefly by Bahama spongers who want them for food and destroy all that they can. The hurricane of 1926 took terrific toll of the colony on Andros Island but under Forsythe's care the birds are recovering slowly.

"Why is it" he asks, "that a man stealing a human work of art is haled to prison, yet may with impunity obliterate the greatest masterpieces of nature?"

Flamingos combine more peculiar characteristics than any others of our birds, supplementing remarkably long necks and legs, with a bent box bill which gathers food by a wiggling motion toward the feet.