THE FLAMINGO
Some subtle sense of approaching spring stirred in the breast of the great mute Swan. He could not call aloud, and the low tone in which he spoke to his companion captives would not do justice to the occasion. So he raised himself to his full height, spread his immense wings, and darted across the pond, half-running and half-flying, and creating such a disturbance that the squirrels in the open-air cage some distance off raced to the top of their dead tree to see what was the matter.
On the pond the wigeon drake dived incontinently, and of the pink flamingoes all, save one, sought the banks, where they twisted their long necks into the shape of corkscrews, just to show their indignation. The remaining bird stood on one leg quite unconcerned, his neck in the shape of a capital S. He stared straight before him, and his glance seemed to light upon the excited Swan, and pass through him to some point behind the end of the world. The Swan was annoyed.
“This isn’t the time for dreaming,” he said, “on a fine April morning when the gardens are beginning to look their best.”
“I’m thinking, not dreaming,” said the Flamingo quietly.
“What a waste of time,” replied the Swan. “When I have nothing to do I preen my feathers. I never think. Isn’t this a pretty place; did you ever see anything as charming?”
This was too much for the Flamingo’s gravity. He turned his head, hid it in the feathers that covered the middle of his spine, and smiled. Then he withdrew his head, but feeling that some of the smile still lingered, put it down to the ground parallel with his foot.
The Swan looked on admiringly. “You’re a funny fellow,” he said; “when I saw one of your family for the first time I thought your body and your head were fixed up on stilts. Now I realise that you have a very special allowance of leg and neck. Why?”
“I’m built on special lines in order to realise my peculiar destiny,” said the Flamingo stiffly.
“Well, well,” replied the Swan, “don’t take things so seriously. You’re a bit stiff in the leg, but you have a flexible neck, and your tongue ought to match it. Tell me your story, I’m a good listener, and you don’t seem to have any friends here among your own companions.”
“They are good enough in their way,” replied the Flamingo, “but they are all European or American birds. I come from Equatorial Africa, from the land of great rivers, where the crocodiles bask in the mud, and the hippopotamus lives under the water, coming now and again to the surface to fill his lungs with air. Mine is a land of marabous and vultures, of lions and antelopes, of rhinoceros and giraffe. The rarest and strangest creatures kept in the gardens are in a way my companions, but the other flamingoes on this pond can boast no such experiences as mine.”
“How come you here, then?” asked the Swan. “If you had a good time in Africa, why leave it?”
“A thing you call a sportsman is to blame,” replied the Flamingo. “We were having one of our state processions along the banks of the river, and he came upon us. We had not seen a white man before, and knew nothing of his intentions, but he knew our habits, and crept up so quietly against the wind that when we rose we were not more than thirty yards away from him; he could not resist the temptation of a shot, perhaps because he thought we were good to eat. The flamingo he picked out fell dead, another was hit hard, and I was pricked in the wing by a stray pellet, and picked up before I could run. The sportsman removed the pellet, and clipped my wings, so that I could not fly, and told one of his black boys to feed me well. Then he brought me to his home over the seas, and here I am. Excuse me a moment——”
With this abrupt apology the Flamingo lowered his head and dug his flat upper mandible into the mud below the surface of the water. He took a mouthful of mud and ooze, and then filtered it with the help of his tongue and the little ridges along the edge of the lower mandible. Then he thrust his neck up in curves that gave it the appearance of a serpent’s body, and moved both mandibles together as though to sample the flavour of the mud.
“It isn’t really to my liking,” he said mournfully. “Why, where I was born and bred I’d have had a mouthful of worms, or little frogs, or other delicacies for less than the trouble I’ve just taken.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” suggested the Swan, “you are fed by the keepers, so you don’t go hungry.”
“It matters a great deal,” persisted the Flamingo. “What makes every creature in this place sick to death? What makes so many die outright? Just the fact that they will be fed at stated hours. There isn’t any interest in the business, there isn’t any search, there isn’t any travel. There have been days when the flamingo army has travelled miles and miles on the wing searching for new feeding grounds, every bird with his eyes wide open, his neck stretched out, his legs hanging straight out behind him. Each one of us, even those in the centre of the wedge, hopes at such a time to be the first to sight a good camping ground. Then the appetite following long hours of travel, the joy of the exercise, and wonder of the sights that we see—strange men, fierce animals, impenetrable forests, and lands where the beasts of the field are rulers and man is of no importance at all.
“What is there here to take the place of that life? In the morning I stand on one leg, in the afternoon I stand on the other. I put my head in the mud, or at the far end of my back, or under my wing, or round my foot. I make an attempt to twist my neck on a new and original pattern, and I listen to the ill-informed chatter of my European and American cousins, and the strange folk who come here to see us. And I’d give all the food that serves me for three days for three hours’ wading, or swimming, or flying in my own far country, under a sky that is really warm. Doubtless you admire my feathers, but I assure you they are very dim and dingy compared with what I wore in the days of my freedom under the sun of Africa.”
“I never see you swim here,” remarked the Swan. He hadn’t seen Africa, and was not interested in it, and he ignored the remarks about coloured plumes. His own feathers were very dull.
“I can swim as well as you can,” the Flamingo assured him. “But I much prefer to wade. Then I can put my head in any direction that pleases me, under my feet if I like, with the upper mandible on the ground. The attitude is considered quaint, and it sometimes helps one to snap up some unconsidered trifle that went about thinking itself quite safe.”
“Have you many enemies?” asked the Swan. “Can you tell me thrilling stories of escape from danger?”
“We are too shy,” explained the Flamingo. “Except upon rare occasions nothing can come near us, and when we change our summer plumage we choose a part of the country where man is seldom or never seen. We go for choice to the banks of some stream that is known only to the hippopotamus and the marabou, and live there until our new feathers are strong.”
“What about nesting time?” asked the Swan.
“That’s more sacred still,” replied the Flamingo. “The wildest and most desolate stretch of marshy land will serve best for that. We build together, there are hundreds of nests side by side. I remember my first view of the nesting colony quite well, for I saw it when I came from the shell, ripe fruit of the one egg of my nest. Most of the nests hold two eggs, but when the family is doubled the young cannot get the attention and instruction given to a single one. They were great times.”
“Tell me all about them,” said the Swan; “begin at the beginning.” And while the other flamingoes walked indignantly across the grass plot, tying their necks into knots because they felt they were ignored, the Equatorial bird croaked harshly, in fashion peculiar to flamingoes, rubbed one of his webbed feet with his beak and renewed his story. The wigeon drake came up quietly to join the audience, and later a stray pochard joined the little group, but nobody else was interested.
“When my mother set me from the egg by giving it a little tap,” began the Flamingo, “I stood up in the nest and had a good look round me. On all sides, as far as my eye could see, there were nests similar to the one that held me, just mounds of mud and fibre, scraped up along the edge of the lake and dried by the sun. Some held one, and others held two, rounded eggs, quite white and rather rough. Others held baby flamingoes, with no feathers to speak of, nothing more than some stubbly down that was dull white or brown. All had straight bills; the beautiful curve that you see now belongs, like the pink plumage, to maturer growth. The feathers of the mother birds were at their worst just then, very dull and dingy.
“I could not recall much of those early days, even if I tried hard. I remember that my mother would leave me from time to time to go down to the lake to fish for me; all the mother birds would go together, and then we little ones would stand up on the edge of the nest and sometimes tumble over it. Some babies, not more than a few days old, would walk boldly to the edge of the lake and start swimming; it came quite easy to them, far more easy than the flying that had to be mastered later on. When food was found the mother birds would come back and feed us, and tell us stories of the world lying far beyond our ken, the world that men live in. My mother told me how she and my father worked to make the nest, piling the soft mud up with feet and bill, and moulding it into shape. She told me that flamingoes live together, and that only bad characters are driven from the pack and forced to live the solitary life.
“Nearly a month had been required to hatch me from the egg, and I had all the summer to grow in, for the older birds would soon moult, and while they were moulting there could be no flying. ‘As soon as we have our new autumn plumage,’ said my mother, ‘you will start your flying lessons.’ And as the days passed, she showed me great flocks of other birds flying overhead, the white egrets, the spurred geese in their black and white dress, the avocets and ibises. At times the hippopotamus trumpeted in the marsh, or a lion roared on the plain, or we heard the wail of a hyæna in the hours of deepest darkness; but there were no other noises to disturb us, and never a danger came our way. The leaders of the flamingo pack had chosen an oasis cut off from the other fertile region by miles of summer-made desert. I learned that when the autumn rains came all the land would blossom and bud once more, and be accessible to man and beast; but by that time we young birds were to be flyers, and the masters of the pack would guide us to safety.
“‘We are fortunate birds indeed,’ said my mother; ‘we have beauty and well-ordered lives, we are related to the storks and herons, on the one hand, and the geese tribes on the other; so in birdland we are sure of a welcome wherever we go. We can walk, swim or fly, according to our own inclination; our feet are webbed, our necks are the most flexible things in birdland; we are very peaceful, even in the mating season, and our eyesight is quite remarkable. We live in the least accessible parts of the world, and the most cunning hunter is baffled by our shyness. Some of us stand as high as a tall man, and measure four feet from bill to tail. These are the measurements of birds that cannot possibly be overlooked.’”
The Flamingo repeated these phrases with evident pleasure, and drew himself up to his full height in order to show that when his neck was straight, and he cared to stand erect, he cut a very fine figure. To be sure he looked a little ridiculous, with his absurdly thin legs and neck, but he did not know this, and there was nobody to tell him.
“As the summer grew,” continued the Flamingo, “the sun’s heat reduced the waters of the lagoon and made the little plateau that held our nest quite dry and hard. Then we youngsters would go off for little journeys on our own account, sometimes to the water for food, at other times towards the plains. We must have looked a curious company, and you would not have known us for flamingoes; our plumage was now white, with a little brown shading here and there, while our bills were still nearly straight. Had we been in an enemy’s country, as we were so often in the later days, we must have fared badly in those late summer months, for we were very awkward and helpless; we could not have defended ourselves against anything, and our parents were losing their feathers, and could hardly fly at all. Then I appreciated the wisdom of the leaders, who had chosen for us a part of the country that was unknown to nearly all other living creatures, and possessed splendid food supplies. A few flocks of birds related to us would rest and feed on the lagoon for an hour or two, and then would be up and away, while sometimes the only visitor was the little bird that walks upon the water,[1]or the little warblers that sang among the reeds all day.
“By the time my feathers had grown, and the moult of the parent birds had brought back a wonderful set of bright pink feathers, I was face to face with the task of my life, learning to fly. That is difficult enough at all times and among all birds, but a very special trouble comes to a young flamingo, because his own parents are not very good at flight. Even when we are fully developed we rise with difficulty; and when we are learning, and are apt to tumble about, we get bad bruises and nasty falls, because our parents cannot move quickly enough to help us. Some young birds were permanently injured, and could never fly properly; others fared even worse, and died of their injuries, and for some weeks our little colony was happy no longer. The young ones complained, the old ones scolded, and it was impossible to make allowance for weaklings. Those that could not fly by the time the waters rose would be left behind. That was the order, and it made us do our best.
“One morning the plover was heard calling to us at daybreak to say that the floods were coming down. The leader sounded the order for departure, and in a few moments we were on the wing in a wedge formation, speeding in search of fresh pasture grounds. It was a difficult journey, and we dropped a few weaklings by the way. When the heat became intense, we were halted by the side of a lake, and there we clustered for hours, shading our heads under our wings. The surface of the water was turned crimson by the strong light on the pink feathers of the grown-up birds.
“Those of us who did not find room on the lake stood round the sides, generally on one leg, thrust our heads and part of our neck under the most convenient wing, and slept or rested until the elder birds called to us to resume our places. Then the great wedge swept on, past forest and clearing and marsh land to another lagoon where we settled for our evening meal, very tired and stiff, but delighted to find that once we were on our wings we could move with ease. We were now in more open country; the break-up of the drought had scattered birds and beasts everywhere. Until the rain came they had kept in the water-courses and river-beds, now they could go where they pleased. Where we rested for the night there was so much noise that for all my fatigue I found it hard to sleep. If we moved and opened our eyes the glitter of the fire-flies was so bright and fascinating that it was hard to turn from them; the frogs, whose friends or relations or play-fellows we had eaten, protested all night long at the top of their voices; grasshoppers and mosquitoes sang, herons croaked and small birds held concerts. This was disturbing enough, but when an elephant pack thundered along towards the forest and the hippopotamus challenged them from the marshes only a few hundred yards away, you can imagine that sleep was not easy, and those of us that were still young and inexperienced would have flown away if we had known of a quieter resting-place. In a little time we learned to rely upon our leaders, to understand that the air held roads and well-marked tracks for them, that they could guide us, if not with perfect safety, at least with far more certainty and definite intention than we gave them credit for.
“Sometimes we camped in the neighbourhood of salt water that the flood had brought down, but this made no difference to our comfort. We could fish in salt water as well as in fresh, and our food—water plants, grubs, insects and small reptiles—was always plentiful. Sometimes, towards evening, when we were just settling for the night, there would be a rush for river or marsh. Deer of all shapes and sizes, zebras, sometimes lions or leopards, would come to drink, and though they may have had no designs upon us, our nerves could not stand the strain of their company. However tired we might be we would rise. Those who went up first would wheel round and round in a circle that grew larger and larger, until at last every bird was on the wing and we were off again through the quick falling twilight, forced to come to ground again where best we could. Then the night would be very restless and disturbed, for any small alarm would send nervous birds fluttering up into the darkness, only to come down again at the sound of the leader’s cry that all was well.
“If I were to tell you of the strange sights that I have seen,” continued the Flamingo, after pausing a moment to sample a little of the mud in the pond, “you would be surprised, but it would take too long. I have seen an army of storks being ranged in close formation to stay the advance of an army of locusts. I have seen beasts of prey drinking side by side with harmless antelopes, and not seeking to molest them. I have seen the rhinoceros lying asleep in the grass in the hunters’ country, quite at his ease, because his faithful attendant, the rhinoceros bird, has been perched on his broad back keeping watch for him. When he rises up the birds will often fly away to a tree, for they know he can look after himself, but when he rests they settle down upon him once again.
“I have seen the baby beasts of marsh and forest, the lion cubs and the hippopotamus calves. I have watched the paths of hunters and hunted in lands where the black man has never seen white folk, and goes about in fear of the animals that ravage his gardens, destroy his cattle, and kill him, too, if they can. And by the time I had seen all these sights I knew something of the world we live in; the spring had come again, and our leaders were bringing us back by forced marches to the lagoon where I was born.
“When we were back in the old familiar spot there were grave discussions about the nests. None of us wished to build new nests if the old ones would do, but some collections of nests were held to be in bad condition, and in one of these blocks my mother’s nest was set. So those who had to rebuild moved down the edge of the lagoon, and were soon busy scraping up mud and rushes. I helped a little, but I did not mate. My feathers were only beginning to turn pink, my bill had hardly acquired a proper curve, and no flamingo is satisfied with his appearance until his beak is longer than his head. I was too young to find a companion, and stayed happily enough by the new nest, or waded into the lagoon with unattached companions of my own year, and had a pleasant, idle time.
“Unfortunately, the nesting season was a failure in our district. The other nesting areas did well enough, but some snakes attacked ours, capturing a number of eggs and some of the first hatched birds. There was no delay. We left the nests and started away to another water, a separate pack. The rest of the old pack was busy rearing young, the snakes did not attack them, so they stayed and we went, under the guidance of a very old bird who was one of the best leaders in the flamingo community.
“When we arrived at a safe place, where water and mud were to be found in abundance, it was too late to build nests. A few birds laid late eggs on the ground, but nothing was hatched, and we moped till moulting time and through it with never a newborn bird in our company. I moulted and secured a new crop of feathers, not very bright, not to be compared with the plumage of birds that were seven years old or more, but still much better than the dingy white and dull brown feathers with which I had been forced to content myself in times past. I found myself better able to fly, and though I have never been quick to rise in the air and get away, I have never known fatigue, and, indeed, in the following spring, when I proposed to a charming bird of my own age whose plumage was not quite so glossy as my own, I was able to fascinate her by my graceful movements in the air, by the ease with which I turned and twisted with wings spread, neck thrust straight out, and feet stretching as far behind me as they could go. My first attempt at nest-making was not altogether a success—our one egg addled—but perhaps it was as well. We were very young and might have made bad parents.”
He paused, and sought for consolation in the depths of the muddy water.
“And then?” queried the Swan.
“The autumn brought the hunting man,” said the Flamingo sadly, “and that’s why I’m here. They’ve clipped my wings; I can’t fly. The air is chill, and cold, and dirty. I’ll never grow good plumage again. I know there is food enough and shelter for bad weather, and companionship of a kind, but I want the African sun, and the tropical streams and forests, and the wild free life, and——”
“It’s no good, my friend,” interrupted the Swan. “You want too much. Be satisfied that you are still alive. Better be a live flamingo in Regent’s Park than a dead one in Central Africa.”
So saying he sailed away to the middle of the pond. The wigeon followed. But the Flamingo, standing on one leg, looked steadily through the misty air as though he could see in the far distance the land of his heart’s desire.
[1]
Microparra capensis.
Microparra capensis.