Like the herons, of which I told you in ST. NICHOLAS for May, 1877, the flamingoes are sociable, and live in flocks.  They have webbed feet, which give them an advantage over the herons in enabling them to swim as well as to wade.  I have never been able to get near enough to these birds to gain any personal knowledge of their habits.

The nest of the flamingo is a curious affair; usually built in a marshy, muddy place, in the form of a mound.  It is made of sticks and grass and mud to the height of two or three feet, with a hollow in the middle to hold the eggs.  The male is said to assist in the construction of the nest, but this is probably mere conjecture, for I think no one living at the present time has been able to get near enough to these birds to watch their habits, and their nests can be reached only with great difficulty.

The female lays two white eggs about the size of those of a goose.  It is said that she sits astride the nest in an ungainly fashion, and that the young, as soon as they are hatched, take to the water like young ducks.

If a law only could be passed to protect these birds, what a grand sight the waters of Florida would soon present!  These great, brilliant, scarlet birds, dallying and playing in the water, or wading near the shore in quest of game, would be a sight never to be forgotten.  Can it be possible that Florida does not care for such glorious creatures, and will allow, year after year, these marauders from the North to kill them without a single protest?  Unless something is done for the protection of these splendid creatures, they must soon become extinct; for their range is quite limited, and I fear the boy and girl readers of ST. NICHOLAS, by the time they grow to men and women, can only read of these as “gorgeous birds of the past.”

Almost every morning, the osprey, or fish-hawk, comes in front of the window and fishes in the shallow water near the house.  He does not seem to be as expert as the kingfisher.  I have seen him dive a dozen times or more into the water before bringing up his prey.  He sails around and around in the air; at last fixing his eyes upon a fish, he swoops down, making the water splash around him.  His feet are large and powerful, and he arranges his long toes in the form of a scoop as he plunges into the river; this scoop is his fishing-tackle with which he brings up his finny food.

I think I should not like to be an osprey, for he seems to have such a hard time to get a living, and yet he is an honest, well-disposed laborer.  After he has succeeded in catching a fish, a bald eagle often swoops down from some tall tree, where he has been watching him, and by main force compels this honest fisher to give up his hard-won prey.  The eagle is considerably larger than his victim, being about three feet in length, while the osprey is only about two feet.

It is quite a grand sight to see these two large birds wheeling through the air—­the osprey trying to elude the eagle, diving first one way and then another, until at last, when he sees the unencumbered eagle must overpower him, in a fit of desperation he lets the fish drop, and the eagle catches it before it reaches the water, and carries it to some retired spot where he devours it.