The Roseate Spoonbill 215 



it was found throughout tropical America north to our Gulf States from 

 Texas to Florida. In the United States, it is now confined largely to south 

 Florida, where, as I have already said, it was fast approaching extinction 

 when the Audubon Societies came to its rescue. 



Although I first went to Florida in 1887, it was not until 1908 that I saw 

 Spoonbills there. Doubtless always more common on the coast than in the 

 interior, the few survivors were to be found only in the most remote part of 

 the great mangrove swamps south of the Everglades. On the evening of 

 March 29, 1908, after traveling all day through mud and mangroves, we 

 reached Cuthbert Rookery, near the extreme southern part of the peninsula, 

 and found, to our intense satisfaction, that among the thousands of Herons 

 nesting on it there were about 40 Spoonbills. 



The beautiful peach-bloom-like pink of the Spoonbills was noticeable at 

 a great distance. In manner of flight they resemble Ibises rather than Herons, 

 the neck being fully extended. The flock formation is also like that at times 

 assumed by the Ibis, each bird flying behind, but a little to one side, of the 

 bird before it, a number, therefore, making a diagonal file. Spoonbills, how- 

 ever, so far as I have observed, maintain a steady flapping of the wings, 

 uninterrupted by short sails, as in the case of the Ibis. 



The Spoonbill's peculiarly shaped bill is adapted to an equally peculiar 

 method of procuring food. I have never seen one of these birds in nature 

 feeding nearby, but Audubon tells us that they "wade up to the tibia, and 

 immerse their bills in the water or soft mud, sometimes with the head and 



even whole neck beneath the surface They move their partially 



opened mandibles laterally to and fro with considerable degree of elegance, 

 munching the fry, insects or small fish which they secure, before swallowing 

 them." 



Audubon says nothing of the voice of the Spoonbill. At Cuthbert Rookery 

 I heard no notes I could identify as theirs, but two years later, in Mexico, 

 I heard them utter a low, croaking call at their nests. 



Fear in animals is so often born of pursuit by man that it is often difiicult 

 to say whether birds which have been much hunted are shy instinctively or 

 intelligently. Wild Ducks, we know, are as wary as birds can well be where 

 they are shot, but surprisingly tame where they are protected and fed. 



I have seen White Egrets roost nightly near a hacienda in Cuba where 

 they had learned they were safe, but those in Cuthbert Rookery were startled 

 into sudden flight by the report of a gun fired at a distance of a mile and 

 a half. 



If, therefore. Spoonbills could be made to realize that man was their 

 friend rather than their enemy, they, too, might learn to trust him. But, 

 unfortunately, their experience with the human race has developed anything 

 but love of it. 



Although the Spoonbills in Cuthbert Rookery had nests with eggs, they 



