whooping crane. It so
closely resembles the whistling swan that only an ornithologist can
recognize the difference, a yellow spot on the side of the upper
mandible, near its base. The whistling swan yet remains in fair numbers,
but it is to be feared that soon it will go as the trumpeter has gone.

THE AMERICAN FLAMINGO, SCARLET IBIS AND ROSEATE SPOONBILL are three of
the most beautiful and curious water-haunting birds of the tropics. Once
all three species inhabited portions of the southern United States; but
now all three are gone from our star-spangled bird fauna. The brilliant
scarlet plumage of the flamingo and ibis, and the exquisite pink
rose-color and white of the spoonbill naturally attracted the evil eyes
of the "milliner's taxidermists" and other bird-butchers. From Florida
these birds quickly vanished. The six great breeding colonies of
Flamingoes on Andros Island, Bahamas, have been reduced to two, and from
Prof. E.A. Goeldi, of the State Museum Goeldi, Para, Brazil, have come
bitter complaints of the slaughter of scarlet ibises in South America by
plume-hunters in European pay.

I know not how other naturalists regard the future of the three species
named above, but my opinion is that unless the European feather trade is
quickly stopped as to wild plumage, they are absolutely certain to be
shot into total oblivion, within a very few years. The plumage of these
birds has so much commercial value, for fishermen's flies as well as for
women's hats, that the birds will be killed as long as their feathers
can be sold and any birds remain alive.

Zoologically, the flamingo is the most odd and interesting bird on the
American continent except the emperor penguin. Its beak baffles
description, its long legs and webbed feet are a joke, its nesting
habits are amazing, and its food habits the despair of most
zoological-garden keepers. Millions of flamingos inhabit the shores of a
number of small lakes in the interior of equatorial East Africa, but
that species is not brilliant scarlet all over the neck and head, as is
the case with our species.

If the American flamingo, scarlet ibis and roseate spoonbill, one or all
of them, are to be saved from total extinction, efforts must be made in
each of the countries in which they breed and live. Their preservation
is distinctly a burden upon the countries of South America that lie
eastward of the Andes, and on Yucatan, Cuba and the Bahamas. The time
has come when the Go