Science is impersonal, the impulsion of a naturalist springs from devotion to his subject, and from no extrinsic motive--such as personal kudos. Nevertheless, we make this categoric claim for ourselves simply because the credit, _quantum valeat_, has since been (not claimed straight away, but rather) insinuated on behalf of others who didn't earn it--analogous with the case of Dr. Cook and the North Pole. Where do these thousands of Spanish flamingoes breed, and how do they maintain their numbers, when Spain, three years out of five, is _too dry_ for nesting purposes? The only obvious answer is, Africa. And, though incapable yet of direct proof, that answer is clearly correct. For flamingoes are essentially denizens of the tropic zone. The few that ever overlap into southern Europe are but a fraction of their swarming millions farther south. During our own expeditions into British East Africa, we found flamingoes in vast abundance on all the equatorial lakes we visited--Baringo, Nakuru, Elmenteita, Naivasha, and, especially, Lake Hannington, where, during past ages, they have so polluted the foreshores as to preclude human occupation. These were the same flamingoes, a few of which "slop over" into Europe; we shot two specimens with the rifle in Nakuru to prove that.[50] Flamingoes are not migratory in an ordinary sense--birds born on the equator seldom are. Their movements have no seasonal character, but depend on the rainfall and the varying condition of the lagoons at different points within their range. Here, in Spain, we see them coming and going, to and fro, at all seasons according to the state of the marisma--and a striking colour-study they present when pink battalions contrast with dark-green pine beneath and set off by deepest azure above. In 1907 flamingoes attempted to establish a nesting-colony at a spot called Las Albacias in the marisma of Hinojos. A mass of nests was already half built, then suddenly abandoned. "If the shadow of a cloud passes over them, they forsake," say the herdsmen of the wilderness. [Illustration: FLAMINGOES ON THEIR NESTS.]