NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 13 



Order HERODIONES, Herons, Storks, Ibises, etc. 

 Family PLATALEIDAE. Spoonbills 



AJAIA AJAJA (Linnaeus) 



ROSEATE SPOONBILL . r ;. 



HABITS 



This unique and beautiful species is one of the many which have 

 paid the supreme penalty for their beauty and been sacrificed by the 

 avaricious hand of man, who can never resist the temptation to destroy 

 and appropriate to his own selfish use nature's most charming crea- 

 tures. He never seems to realize that others might like to enjoy an 

 occasional glimpse at a group of these gorgeous birds, clearl}^^ outlined 

 in pink and white against a background of dark green mangroves; 

 nor does he appreciate how much a Florida landscape is enhanced by 

 the sight of a flock of "pink curlews" fading away over the tree tops, 

 until the glow of rose-colored wings is lost in the distant blue of the 

 sky. All his sordid mind can grasp is the thought of a pair of pretty 

 wings and the money the}^ will bring when made into ladies' fans! 

 And so a splendid bird, once common in Florida and all along the 

 Gulf coast to Texas, has been gradually driven from its former haunts 

 and is making its last stand in a few remote and isolated localities. 

 The roseate spoonbill never enjoyed a wide distribution, nor was it 

 ever found commonly very far inland. Audubon (1840) implies that 

 in his time it wandered as far north as North Carolina, though it was 

 not common even in South Carolina; he also speaks of a specimen 

 sent to Wilson from Natchez, Mississippi. Dr. Frank M. Chapman 

 (1914) writes: 



In 1858, when Dr. Henry Br\'ant visited Pelican Island, on Indian River, he 

 found not only brown pelicans, but also roseate spoonbills nesting there. But 

 even at that early date these beautiful and interesting birds were prey for the 

 plumer, some of whom. Dr. Bryant writes, were killing as many as GO spoonbills 

 a day, and sending their wings to St. Augustine to be sold as fans. From that 

 time almost to this, " Pink Curlews," as the Floridan calls them, have been a 

 mark for every man with a gun. Only a remnant was left when the National 

 Association of Audubon Societies protested against the further wanton destruc- 

 tion of bird life, and through its wardens and by the establishment of reservations, 

 attempted to do for Florida what the State had not enough foresight to do for 

 itself. 



Writing at the time when the destruction of plume birds was flour- 

 ishing, W. E. D. Scott (1889) says: 



The record in regard to the species in question is even more shocking than that 

 of the flamingo. The roseate spoonl)ill was 10 years ago an abundant bird on the 

 Gulf Coast of Florida, as far north at least as the mouth of the Anclote River. 

 The birds bred in enormous rookeries in the region about Cape Romano and to 

 the south of that point. These rookeries have been described to me bj' men who 



