FLAMENS. 702 FLAMINGO. important were those attached to the College of Pontiflces, originally 15 in number, of whom 12 (flamines minores) were plebeians and seem early to have been neglected, as the names of only !) are known. The remaining 3 {flamines maiores, or simply flamines) were always patricians, and were the flamines Dialis, Martialis, Quirinalis. All of these were bound by a strict ceremonial, which for a long time prohibited them from holding any other office ; and though this rule was re- laxed from about B.C. 200, permission to hold military command or to be absent from Italy was never granted to the flamines Dialis, and only very late to the others. The flamen Dialis (of Jupiter) was bound by very strict regula- tions. He could not take an oath, mount a horse, see an army, or even any one at work; he must keep carefully aloof from all impurity, and al- ways wear his official dress, fastened with brooches, for no knot was allowed, and on his head the pilleus, a pointed cap, on the top of which an olive twig was fastened by a fillet of wool. He was also forbidden to pass a night away from his house. His wife, the flaminica, a priestess of Juno, was bound by similar re- strictions, and in case of her death the flainen was obliged to resign. These restrictions were ac- companied by privileges — the curule chair, the toga prwtexta, the attendance of a lictor, and a seat in the Senate — while a prisoner who en- tered his house was at once freed from his chains, and he who touched his knee could- not be exe- cuted on that day. The office was found so burdensome that during the last century of the Republic it remained unoccupied for seventy-five years. The flamines were installed in the Comitia Calata. and were chosen by the pontifex maximus from three candidates nominated by the ponti- flces. Other flamens were the flamines curiales, flamines divorum for the worship of the em- perors, and the flamen arvalium, belonging to the Arval Brothers (q.v.). Consult: Marquardt, "Romische Staatsverwaltung." in Eandbuch der romischen Altertiimer (Leipzig, 1885); Darem- berg and Saglio, Dictionnain des antiquitis grecques ei romaines (Paris. 1896). FLAMIN'EO. The brother of Vittoria Co- rombona in Webster's White Devil. He en- courages bis sister in her course of action, and finally stabs her. Some of the finest passages are assigned to the character in spite of its moral ugliness. FLAMINGO (Port., older form flamengo, Sp. flamenco, from Port, flammant, flambant, OF. flnman, flambant, Vr. flumunt, flamingo, flaming, pres. part, of Port, flamar, OF. /lamer, to flame, from Lat. flam ma. flame ; influenced in popular etymology by Port. Flamengo, Sp. Flamenco, Fr. Flamand, Fleming). One of a group of water- birds of remarkable appearance, having a goose- like body mounted upon long legs and sur- mounted by an extremely long and flexible neck, terminated l>v a huge misshapen beak. (See Col- ored plate of Wading Birds.) Eight species are recognized, forming the family Phoenicopteridse, all rose-red in color, and distributed throughout the wanner parts of the world. They gather in flocks upon marshes and river-banks, and in migration fly like geese, in long strings, or a wedge formation, their legs trailing behind and their necks folded upon their backs. The great length of the neck is due not to an extraordinary number (eighteen) of bones, but to the unusual length of each vertebra. Measured from beak to toes, their matured length may exceed six feet, but as the legs, which are naked far up to the thigh, are only about two feet long, and the body is small, the apparent size is much less. BEAK OP AMERICAN FLAMINGO. The food of these quaint birds is derived from the water and mud, and in seeking it they wade about in shallow places, supported upon the soft mud by their great webbed feet, which are kept in motion to disturb the bottom and stir out its lurking contents. The bill is large, deeper than broad, and suddenly curved downward near the middle, so that, as the bird wades and seeks its food, either in the water or in the mud, it makes use of the bill in a reversed position, the upper mandible being lowest. The edges of both mandibles are furnished with small and very fine transverse lamina, which serve, like those in the bills of the ordinary marsh-duck, to prevent the escape of the small crustaceans, mollusks. worms, small fishes, seeds, etc., which are the flamingo's food, and to separate them from the mud with which they may be mingled. The upper surface of the tongue is also furnished on both sides and at the base with numerous small flexible horny spines, directed backward. They make their nests gregariously in marshes, scraping up a heap of mud, on the top of which is the nest, containing two chalk -white eggs. Many fables remain in the old books as to these nests, but the truth is that the heaps of mud are only of such a height as will lift the eggs well above the surrounding water, and that the female sits with her legs folded comfortably beside her. Their favorite breeding-places are salt lakes and marshes, such as the broad marasmas of Spain and the great Ataeama saline marshes in South America. The flamingo of the Mediterranean region [Phcenicopterus antiquorum) ranges far cast- ward and southward, and the three other species, so called, of southern Africa and southeastern Asia, may prove to be mere varieties of it. A spe- cies is peculiar to Chile, and another (distin- guished by the absence of a back toe) to the ele- vated desert of Ataeama. on the border of Chile and Bolivia. The North American flamingo {Phoenicoph rux ruber), once common in all the Southern United Slates, but now grown very rare north of the Bahamas, West Indies and Central America, is remarkable for the deep vermilion color of its plumage, set off by black wing quills, which has made it too attractive to sportsmen and plume-hunters. The males show the brightest plumage, the young being nearly white anil the females pale pink. The classification of these birds has been a puzzle to ornithologists, but they are now re- garded as a family representing a distinct order (Odontoglossae), usually ranked as intermediate
