22 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



is apparently a submerged forest, killed by inundations from the sea, 

 the remains of which are still standing, tall, dead trees, many of them 

 of large size, bare and bleached. During the fall and early winter 

 the slough is full of water but at the time we were there, in April, it 

 was partially dry in spots, but mostly soft and boggy, with sluggish 

 streams and numerous shallow muddy pools scattered through it, form- 

 ing fine feeding grounds for spoonbills, ibises, and other water birds. 

 There is another favorite resort of the spoonbills on one of the keys 

 which has a fair sized lake in the centre. Large flocks of "pink 

 curlews," as they are called by the natives, had been seen almost 

 daily flying to and from this lake. Owing to this fact we were led 

 to suppose that we might find a breeding rookery here, but a day's 

 search failed to reveal even a single bird. I am inclined to infer 

 that they come here only to feed in the shallow muddy waters of 

 the lake or to roost in the mangroves around it. 



I have seen and several other observers have reported seeing flocks 

 of roseate spoonbills, numbering from half a dozen to 50 or 60 birds, 

 at various points on the coast of Texas during the spring. One large 

 flock constantly frequented the chain of islands between Mesquite 

 and San Antonio Bays on May 15 and 16; we spent some time chas- 

 ing them from one island to another, but could not drive them away 

 from that vicinity. Our guides felt confident that they would nest 

 there in June, as it was here that Mr. Simmons had found the nests 

 referred to above. The theory has also been advanced that these 

 are birds which have bred on the coast of Mexico earlier in the season 

 and wandered north after the breeding season. Most of these birds 

 that I saw were in immature plumage, though some few seemed to 

 be nearly adult, perhaps barren or unmated birds. I beheve that 

 they were all nonbreeders and were simply wandering around in 

 flocks. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — South and Central America, islands of the Carribbean Sea, 

 and tlie Gulf and south Atlantic coasts of the United States. East 

 to the Atlantic coast of Florida (Indian River), the Bahama Islands 

 (Great Inagua), eastern Brazil, (Para). South to the central part of 

 eastern Argentina (near Buenos Aires) . West to the coast of Chile 

 (Santiago), Peru (Lower Ucayali River), Costa Rica (La Palma), 

 Nicaragua (San Juan del Sur), and Sinaloa (Mazatlan). North to 

 Sinaloa (Mazatlan), Texas (Galveston Bay, Victoria County, and 

 Beamont), and the coast of Louisiana (Cameron Parish and Lake 

 Arthur). This range has been greatly restricted within the last few 

 decades and the species is now probably extirpated from most of the 

 Antillean Islands and from other regions where it was formerly a 

 common breeder. In South America it is resident and of general 

 distribution on both coasts and in the interior along the larger rivers 



