The flamingo is a beautiful inhabitant of all marshy regions in the tropics. It is found in great numbers in South America and the West Indies, and in Africa, Southern Asia, and China. It is a bird of wondrous beauty. It has a slender, gracefully formed body, long thin legs, and a very long, flexible neck. When it stands erect, its neck stretched in the air, its head is fully six feet from the ground.

The feathers on the body of the flamingo are white, delicately tinted with rose-color. Its wings, which are very large, are of the most brilliant scarlet, and the long quills are black. It is a very sociable bird, and is always seen in flocks of several hundred. The appearance of a flock of flamingoes, as described by travellers, is one of startling magnificence. Seen from afar, wading or swimming in the inlets of salt-marshes—for the flamingo loves best to keep near the sea-coast—one would think that an immense army of red-coated soldiers was encamped there, instead of a flock of harmless, defenseless birds. In South America the flamingo is called "the soldier-bird" by the natives, and Humboldt, the great German traveller and naturalist, relates a very amusing story, which he gives as an actual occurrence, illustrating the fitness of this name. A new township of Angostura had been formed; but the inhabitants were scarcely settled in their new homes when, one morning, a wild cry of alarm spread through the little village that an immense body of men in red garments, probably hostile Indians, was advancing. Such weapons as were at hand were hastily seized, and all the men rushed out to defend their homes. Suddenly the supposed hostile army rose in the air, and forming a long line of flashing scarlet against the clear blue sky, took its course in the direction of the great salt-marshes around the mouth of the Orinoco.

Naturalists have encountered great difficulty in their attempts to study the habits of the flamingo in its native haunts, for it is a very shy and cautious bird, and no flock is ever found without a sentinel posted to give notice of the approach of danger. This is usually the largest, and probably the oldest and wisest, bird of the flock. At the least sound it lifts its large head as high in the air as the long neck will allow, and looks about on every side. If any boat or hunter is seen, the whole flock, with loud screechings, instantly vanishes among the tall water-grasses.

When the flamingo sleeps it draws one leg up among its breast feathers, and bending its neck backward, rests its head on the middle of its back, with the beak erect in the air or buried in its wing. It is a graceful, rapid swimmer, and flies easily, stretching its long neck before and its legs behind, like the crane and stork. Its nest is described by those naturalists who have been fortunate enough to see it as an immense heap of mud and water-grasses in the depths of some solitary swamp, where the mother bird broods patiently for thirty days on her two glistening white eggs. When the little ones are hatched they take to the water immediately, and swim about as lively as young ducks; but they are not strong enough to fly for some months, and not until they are three years old do they attain the full magnificence of their scarlet plumage.

The harmless and peaceful flamingo has many enemies besides man. Beasts of prey are prowling abroad at night, and pounce upon these birds while they are sleeping in their marshy homes. In the great South American swamps the ocelot is one of its most formidable foes. The ocelot is a very small member of the panther family, and is found in Mexico and all through the American tropics. It is a tawny-colored creature, covered with glistening black markings. It has the same habits as other members of its family, spending the day asleep in some secluded thicket, and roaming the forests at night and early dawn in search of birds and small animals.