Ornithologists, as is their wont, have disputed much among themselves as to whether the flamingo is a stork-like duck or a duck-like stork. Indians accept the former view and call the bird the King Goose (_Raj Hans_); their opinion was shared by Jerdon, who classed the flamingo among the geese. Likewise, Stuart Baker has given flamingos a place among the Indian ducks and their allies.
The flamingo is both wader and swimmer. It has long legs, the better to wade with, and webbed feet admirably adapted to natation. The bird certainly wades by preference. I have never seen it in water sufficiently deep to render swimming necessary or even possible. Those who have been more fortunate state that the swimming movements of the flamingo resemble those of a swan. I doubt whether flamingos ever swim from choice, but the webbed feet are likely to be useful, especially in the case of young birds, when flamingos are swept off their feet by the wind in a violent storm.
Two species of flamingo occur in India. These are known as _Phœnicopterus roseus_ and _P. minor_, or the common and the lesser flamingo. As the former is the one most often seen in India let us concentrate our attention on it. It is as tall as many a man, and measures over four feet from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail. Of these four feet the greater portion consists of neck, which is very supple; a flamingo when preening its feathers often twists the neck so that it assumes the shape of a figure of eight. The general hue of the bird is white tipped with rosy pink; the wings are crimson and black, hence the appropriate scientific name, _Phœnicopterus_, wings of flame. The bill is pale pink, tipped with black, while the legs are reddish pink.
Every Anglo-Indian has seen flamingos in the wild state, if not in India, at any rate from the deck of a ship as it crept through the Suez Canal. The shallow lakes and lagoons in the vicinity of the Canal abound with flamingos. These beautiful birds are to be seen in numbers throughout the cold weather in the shallow lakes and backwaters round about Madras. Flamingos are very numerous in Ceylon, where they are known to the Singalese as the “English Soldier Birds” on account of their “crimson tunics” and upright martial bearing.