The tropical wading birds of the old world are no less remarkable for beauty or size than those of equatorial America. The rose-coloured Flamingo, with red wings and black quills, adorns the creeks and rivers of tropical Africa and Asia, and in warm summers extends his migrations as far northward as Strasburg or the Rhine. The sight of a troop of flamingoes approaching on the wing and describing a great fiery triangle in the air is singularly majestic. When about to alight, their flight becomes slower, they hover for a moment, then their evolutions trace a conical spire, and finally descending, they immediately arrange themselves in a long line, place their sentinels, and commence their fishing operations. [Illustration: FLAMINGOES.] On the borders of Lake Menzaleh, in Egypt, thousands upon thousands of flamingoes may often be seen standing in scarlet array. The Arabs catch them in nets, or endeavour to surprise the sentinels by cautiously creeping up to them under the water, and suddenly breaking their necks before they have time to give the note of alarm. It is then easy to catch a number of the unsuspecting troop. The flamingoes are not only beautiful in appearance, but their flesh also surpasses that of most other birds in delicacy of flavour. At the renowned culinary feasts of Lucullus, their fleshy tongues, interwoven with fat, formed one of the rarest and most highly prized dishes. Many of the learned have doubted the truth of this tradition, as the Romans were unacquainted with the use of fire-arms, but Brehm,[31] who thinks it would have been impossible to collect so many flamingoes by means of the noisy gun, is convinced that they were caught with nets in the swamps of Pontus, as they are now on Lake Menzaleh. [Illustration: EGYPTIAN IBIS.] The white Ibis, who formerly made his appearance from the south, along with the swelling waters of the Nile, was revered as a sacred bird by the Egyptians, as the herald of the abundance which the growing river was about to scatter over the inundated land. They paid him divine honours, they embalmed his remains with the same spices which served to preserve the corpses of princes from decay, and the pyramid of Sakarrah served as the mausoleum of countless thousands of Ibises. At present, however, the sacred bird, as if resenting the deprivation of his ancient honours, no longer makes his appearance in Egypt, for he is never met with beyond the northern boundary of the tropical rains. When the Blue and White Nile begin to rise, he builds his rude nest among the branches of the thorny bushes, in an inundated part of the primitive forest, and lays in September three or four snow-white or yellow-speckled eggs, which are hatched in a few weeks, and find abundant food in the countless worms and insects generated in the swampy grounds.