FAMILY PLATALEIDÆ
THE SPOONBILL
PLATALÉA LEUCORODIA
General plumage white; a large patch of reddish yellow on the breast; a crest of long narrow white feathers pendent over the neck; lore, orbits, and naked space on the neck, pale yellow; bill black, tipped with yellow; irides red; feet black. Young birds want the yellow patch on the breast and the occipital crest; portions of the wing black. Length thirty-one inches. Eggs white, spotted with light red.
Spoonbills do not appear to have been common at any time; for though Sir Thomas Browne enumerates them among the birds of Norfolk and Suffolk, where they build in heronries, his contemporary, Willughby, knew them only as natives of Holland. This bird is not unfrequent in East Anglia, and it is met with now and again along the south coast, and has wandered up the Thames valley.
The Spoonbill is a migratory bird, building its nest and rearing its young in the north of Europe and Asia, and retiring in autumn to the shores of the Mediterranean or to Africa. It is remarkable not only for the singular conformation of its bill, but for 'being one of the very few which have been found to possess no true muscles of the organ of voice; and no modulation of a single tone appears to be possessed by the bird.'[32]
It builds its nest in high trees, or, when these are wanting, among reeds and rushes; and lays four eggs.
[32] Yarrell's British Birds.
ORDER ANSERES
FAMILY ANATIDÆ