WHITE SPOONBILL. 185 



was taken from a freshly killed specimen, sent him from 

 Yarmouth by the late Mr. Joseph Sparshall, states in 

 the " Appendix " to his " British Zoology" that " a 

 flock of these birds migrated into the marshes, near 

 Yarmouth, in Norfolk, in April, 1774," but since that 

 time, although an annual visitant to our shores, on its 

 migratory passage, it has appeared only in pairs, or at 

 most three or four at one time. According to Messrs. 

 Sheppard and Whitear, *' a pair were seen at Cromer, 

 in June, 1818 ; and one was killed at Yarmouth in the 

 month of May of the same year." In 1829, Mr. Hunt 

 remarks in his list, " In the course of the last five or six 

 years, seven or eight of these birds have been killed 

 at Caister and Burgh, in the neighbourhood of Yar- 

 mouth, one of which is in the Norwich Museum'^ and 

 another in the possession of Mr. J. J. Gurney." Mr. 

 Selby, also, in his " British Ornithology," states that 

 when in London, in May, 1830, he obtained a male and 

 female in fine adult plumage from Norfolk, this recently 

 killed male being the one represented of the size of life 

 in his work. 



In Sir William Hooker's MS. one is said to have 

 been taken alive on Salthouse broad. May 21st, 1831 ; 

 three more on Breydon, in June, 1834; and an adult 

 bird in the Norwich Museum,t is stated to have been 

 killed at Salthouse, in 1838. Mr. J. H. Gurney 's collec- 

 tion contains three spoonbills in one case, two of which, 

 in immature plumage, were shot together near Yar- 

 mouth; and the third, an adult male, was purchased 

 in the Norwich Market prior to 1846, being the one 

 referred to by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher in the 



* Probably the specimen (No. 213b) still preserved, as a 

 skeleton, and marked "Adult, Norfolk." 



t No. 213 in tlie Museum collection, marked "Male adiilt, 

 September, 1838." 

 2b 



