650 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — HERODIONES — IBIDES. 



chin, and not quite separated from the hare loral space, hecause the feathers on the side of the 

 jaw stop a little short of the hard base of the mandible. Young, first plumage (with traces of 

 down still) : Remarkably lustrous. Plumage entirely green ; legs black } bill blackish, irreg- 

 ularly blotched or regularly banded with pinkish-white. This green unicolor plumage, consti- 

 tuting Ibis thcdassinus of some, is retained till full growth, gradually giving way through a 



Fig. 454. —European Spoonbill, Plafalea leucorodia, \ nat. size. (From Brehm. ) 

 brownish or grayish to the purple-chestnut and iridescent plumage. Chicks hatch clothed in 

 blackish down, with whitish bill. Southwestern U. S., especially Texas ; N. to Kansas ; W. 

 through New Mexico and Arizona to California (to Oregon?), and far S. in tropical America. 

 Swarming by thousands at some points along the Rio Grande. Nest in vast heronries with 

 various herons, in the beds of reeds and rushes, rising in air by '' hundreds of acres " when a gun 

 is fired. Nest strongly and compactly woven of dead reeds, aifixed 1^' twining to broken down 



