The Roseate Spoonbills alight on trees with as much facility as Herons, and even walk on their large branches. They usually nestle on the tops of the mangroves, placing their nests at the distance of a few yards from each other. They are formed of sticks of considerable size and are flat, like most of those of the Heron tribe. The eggs are laid about the middle of April, and are usually three. They measure two inches and five-eighths in length, an inch and seven-eighths in their greatest breadth, are slightly granulated, almost equally rounded at both ends, and have a pure white colour. I have never seen the young when recently hatched; but when able to fly they are greyish-white. The bill is then quite smooth, of a yellowish-green colour, as are the legs and feet, as well as the skin on part of the head. Young birds in their second year have the wings and the lower wing-coverts of a pale roseate tint, the bill more richly coloured, and the legs and feet dark brownish-red, or purplish. At this age, they are unadorned with the curling feathers on the breast; but in the third spring the bird is perfect, although it increases in size for several seasons after. I have never seen one of these birds of the bright red colour assigned to them by some authors.
While on one of the islands of Galveston Bay in Texas, I found eight or ten nests of these birds, placed in low cactuses, amid some hundreds of nests belonging to Herons of different species, but was not rendered aware of the fact until I compared the eggs found there with those procured in the Floridas, although I did at the time mention to my friend Edward Harris, and to my son, that I thought the eggs and nests of which I speak were those of the Roseate Spoonbill and not of the Herons. What rendered the fact doubtful, however, was, that no Spoonbills were to be seen, as they had all betaken themselves to flight on hearing the reports of our guns.
In connection with the procuring of some of these birds, I find a rather curious occurrence recorded in my journal. On the 2d of May 1837, my party and I went on shore from the Revenue Cutter the “Campbell,” on the island of Galveston, for the purpose of obtaining fish and prawns, the latter of which are in that country extremely abundant, and certainly the largest I have ever seen. Our fishing over, we were on the point of returning, when we saw three Spoonbills alight on a sand-bar, and almost immediately proceed to the water in search of food. My son was despatched after them, and having waded through some muddy parts of the inlet on the shore of which we were standing, he succeeded in getting near, and killed the finest of the three. Almost at the same instant, the back fins of a large fish, resembling those of a shark, were seen meandering above the surface of the shallow waters. My son received prompt intelligence of this, to enable him to make good his return. The monster moved about rather slowly, and John having rammed home a couple of bullets, lodged them in its body, on which it floundered about apparently in great agony. One of our boats immediately pushed toward the spot, and my son was taken on board, while the animal used its best efforts to get into deeper water. Now sailors and all joined in the chase. The gun was again charged with balls, my son waded once more towards it, and lodged the missiles in its body, while from the bow of the boat it received several blows from the oars and gaff-hook. The tars all leaped into the water, and the bleeding fish was at once closely beset. The boatswain at a single lucky stroke cut off its tail, and having afterwards fastened the hook in one of its eyes, we dragged it to the beach. About a hundred Mexican prisoners, Texian soldiers, and officers, were there; but instead of our prize turning out a shark, it proved to be a sawfish, measuring rather more than twelve feet in length. From its body we took out alive ten young ones. It was cut into pieces by the Mexican prisoners, and soon devoured. Five or six of the young were put into rum, and ultimately carried to England.
The feathers of the wings and tail of the Roseate Spoonbill are manufactured into fans by the Indians and Negroes of Florida; and at St Augustine these ornaments form in some degree a regular article of trade. Their flesh is oily and poor eating.
Platalea Ajaja, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol i. p. 231.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 668.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 346.
Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea Ajaja, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. vii. p. 123, pl. 63, fig. 1.—Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 79.
Adult Male. Plate CCCXXI.
Bill very long, excessively depressed, being when viewed laterally very slender, but when seen from above nearly as broad as the head at the base, considerably contracted in the middle, and at the end expanded into a large obovate disk much broader than the head. Upper mandible with the dorsal outline almost straight, descending at the base, at the tip decurved, the ridge extremely broad and flat, gradually widening beyond the nostrils, at the end terminated by the very small, decurved, blunt claw; the sides declinate at the base, horizontally flattened towards the end, separated in their whole length from the ridge by a narrow groove, their margins soft and blunt. Nostrils basal, oblong-linear, of moderate size. Lower mandible with the angle very long, narrow, rounded, the crura narrow, and gradually flattened, the extremity expanded into a flattened disk as in the upper. The mandibles are covered with soft skin, which for half their length is rough with roundish plates having their anterior margin somewhat prominent.
Head of moderate size, flattened above. Neck long and slender. Body compact, ovate. Legs long and rather slender; tibia bare in its lower half, and reticulate; tarsus rather long, stout, roundish, covered all round with reticulated subhexagonal scales; toes rather long, moderately stout, covered above with numerous scutella, but at the base reticulated; first more slender, articulated on the same plane; second considerably shorter than third, which is in the same proportion exceeded by the fourth. Claws moderate, arched, compressed, laterally grooved, rather obtuse.
The head, gular sac, and a small part of the neck, destitute of feathers. Those on the neck linear or lanceolate, small, with disunited barbs; a tuft on the lower and fore part of the neck recurved and silky. The feathers on the other parts are of moderate length, ovate, rather compact above, blended beneath. Wings long and very broad; primaries firm, broad, tapering, but rounded, the second longest, the third next, the first a quarter of an inch shorter; secondaries broad and broadly rounded. Tail short, even, of twelve rather broad, abruptly rounded feathers.