The same beauty of plumage which characterises so many of the American forest-birds, adorns, likewise, the feathered tribes of the swamp and the morass, of the river and the lake. Nothing can exceed in beauty a troop of scarlet Ibises or deep red Flamingoes (_Phœnicopterus ruber_) on the green margin of a stream. Raised on enormous stilts, and with an equally disproportionate length of neck, the flamingoes would be reckoned among the most uncouth birds, if their splendid robe did not entitle them to rank among the most beautiful. They always live in troops, and range themselves, whether fishing or resting, like soldiers, in long lines. One of the number acts as sentinel, and on the approach of danger gives a warning scream, like the sound of a trumpet, when, instantly, the whole troop, expanding their flaming wings, rise loudly clamouring into the air. These strange-formed birds build in the swamps high conical nests of mud, in the shape of a hillock with a cavity at top, in which the female generally lays two white eggs of the size of those of a goose, but more elongated. The rude construction is sufficiently high to admit of her sitting on it conveniently, or rather riding, as the legs are placed on each side at full length. Their mode of feeding is no less remarkable. Twisting their neck in such a manner that the upper part of their bill is applied to the ground, they at the same time disturb the mud with one of their webbed feet, thus raising up from the water insects and spawn, on which they chiefly subsist. Six feet high, and stately as a grenadier of the guards, the American Jabiru stalks along the banks of the morasses. His plumage is white, but his neck and head are black, like his long legs; his conical, sharp, and powerful black bill, is a little recurved, while that of the stork, to whom he is closely related, is straight. He destroys an incredible number of reptiles and fishes; and, being very sly, is difficult to kill. The roseate American Spoon-bill (_Platalea Ajaja_) is particularly remarkable for his curious large beak, dilating at the top into a broad spoon or spatula, which, though not possessed of great power, renders him excellent service in disturbing the mud and seizing the little reptiles and worms he delights to feed on. The Jacana (_Parra jacana_) possesses enormously long and slender toes, armed with equally long spine-like claws. While pacing the ground they seem as inconvenient as the snow shoes of a Laplander, and yet nothing can be more suitable for a bird destined to stalk over the floating leaves of the Nelumbos and Nymphæas, and to seek for water insects on this unstable foundation. The Jacana is found all over tropical America, and is also called the Surgeon, from the nail of his hinder toe being sharp and acuated like a lancet.