190 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



of specimens obtained are decidedly in immature 

 plumage. 



Unlike the stork tlie spoonbill, though similarly per- 

 secuted, does not often betake itself far inland, relying 

 mainly for subsistence on the daily renewed feast, afforded 

 by the ebb and flow of our tidal waters ; and hence the 

 large proportion of them that are seen and procured on 

 Breydon. The Salthouse marshes, until their drainage 

 and embankment in 1851, were also a most favourite 

 resort of the spoonbill, as well as of the avocet, a some- 

 what similar feeder,* but this spot is no longer adapted 

 to their habits. An occasional straggler or two may 

 be seen, however, along the flat shores of the wash; 

 and Hickling, near Yarmouth, appears to be the only 

 broad that has special attractions for this singular 

 species. 



* In the " Zoologist " for 1843 (pp. 226, 227), in his " Notes 

 on the Birds of Sussex," Mr. A. E. Knox describes the mode of 

 feeding of the spoonbill from certain facts supplied him by Mr. 

 A. T. Dodd, of Chichester. The latter gentleman, it appears, 

 had received a specimen recently killed in that neighbourhood 

 from " an intelligent person of whose accuracy of observation he 

 entertained no doubt," and the mode adopted by the bird was 

 described as that of " ploughing the soft sand or mud from side 

 to side with its bill, to the depth of about a quarter of an inch, by 

 which he supposed it collected small marine insects and worms, 

 while it continued to work the bill all the time, precisely like a 

 duck." The following note, also, on this subject, from observa- 

 tions made in Hungary by Major Thomas Walker, of Wexford, is 

 given by Thompson in his "Birds of Ireland" (vol. ii., p. 180). 

 " The motions of the spoonbill are singular, when a number are 

 standing in a line on the edge of a stream, they keep streaking 

 the bill sideways through the water, and the movement is simul- 

 taneous ; all the bills being directed up the stream at once, and 

 all down it at the same time." 



