Lord Lilford, "On the Breeding of the Flamingo in Spain," _Proceedings Zoological Society of London_, 1880, pp. 446-50; Howard Saunders, _ibid._, 1869, and the same authority in the _Ibis_, 1871, pp. 394 _et seq._
The late Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, who visited Spain in May 1879, likewise failed to reach the nesting spot--apparently through the usual cause, not going far enough--though a few eggs were found scattered on the wet mud of the marisma. (Recorded by Lord Lilford as above.)
Thus the question remained unsettled till 1883, when a favouring season enabled the present authors to succeed where greater ornithologists had striven in vain.
A venerable apologue attaches to the nesting habit of the flamingo. Owing to the length of its legs, it was assumed that the bird could not incubate in the ordinary manner of birds, and that, therefore, it stood astraddle on a nest built up to the requisite height--a combination of unproved assumption with inconsequential deduction. 'Twere ungracious to be wise after the event, yet, in fact, this fable passed current as "Natural History" for precisely two centuries--from 1683, when Dampier so described the nesting of flamingoes on the Cape de Verde Islands,[48] till 1883, when the present authors had opportunity of observing a flamingo-colony in southern Spain.
Flamingoes do not nest every year in the Spanish marismas. Their doing so depends on the season, and only in very wet years is the attempt made. Rarely, even then, are young hatched off, so persistently are the wastes raided by egg-lifters, who sweep up by wholesale every edible thing, and to whom a "Flamingo City," with its hundreds of big eggs all massed together--a boat-load for the gathering--represents an El Dorado. As early as 1872 eggs were brought to us--taken by our own marshmen on May 24--but it was not till 1883 that we enjoyed seeing an occupied nest-colony ourselves.
More than a quarter-century has sped since then, yet we cannot do better than substantially transcribe the narrative as recorded in _Wild Spain_.
During the month of April we searched the marismas systematically for the nesting-places of flamingoes, but, though exploring large areas--riding many leagues in all directions through mud and water varying from a few inches to full three feet in depth--yet no sign of nests was then encountered. Flamingoes there were in thousands, together with a wealth of aquatic bird-life that we will not stop here to describe. But the water was still too deep, the mud-flats and new-born islets not yet sufficiently dried for purposes of nidification. The only species that actually commenced to lay in April were the coots, purple herons, peewits, Kentish plovers, stilts, redshanks, and a few more.