SPOONBILL 317 



decayed, which Mr. Gordoa pronounced to be the skin 

 of a Black Stork. From its appearance we assumed that 

 it must have been lying there for about six weeks, float- 

 ing on the shore with the tide. I picked up the pinion 

 of one wing, one foot, and the skull. On questioning 

 the man he said that he had captured it at a small plash 

 of water where eels had collected, all the rest of the 

 ditches in the marsh, from the long warm dry weather, 

 being quite dried up." — Walter Prentis, Rainham {Zoo- 

 logist, 1884, p. 429). 



Family PLATALEID^. 



Genus PLATALEA, Linnaeus. 



SPOONBILL. 



Platalea leucorodia, Linnaeus. S.N., i., p. 231 

 (1766). 



The Spoonbill was formerly very numerous in Kent, 

 and it is supposed that they bred in the county, especially 

 in the old Heronry at Cobham Hall. Of late years they 

 have become only occasional visitors, and are nearly 

 always victims of their visit. 



In Pennant's Zoologij, 1812, it is stated that the Spoon- 

 bill was met with by " Boys on the Kentish Coast, but it 

 is not included in his Birds of SanchvicJi, and that another 

 was met with at Greenwich in August." 



The Eev. J. Pemberton Bartlett, in 1844, says : " This 

 very rare straggler has been killed in Eomney Marsh, 

 and is in Dr. F. Plomley's collection." Mr. J. W. 

 Hulke, of Deal, writing to the Zoologist, June 17, 1850, 

 says : "A flock of six Spoonbills has frequented Sandwich 



