PLATALEA TENUIROSTRIS. 743 
bird being noted by him near Newcastle on the 18th September. 
Afterwards occasionally observed in the ‘ vleys ;? and a small colony 
were found breeding by Butler on the Ist October, in a thick reed- 
bed near the Buffalo River, on the Transvaal side, of which he 
furnishes the following note: ‘ Found a small colony of Spoonbills, 
five or six pairs breeding in a bed of bulrushes growing in a“ vley”’ 
near Newcastle, on the Ist October, 1881. Nests large, composed 
of sedge, being built just above the level of the water and placed 
within five or six yards of each other. All contained young birds, 
either two or three in number, almost ready to leave the nest, 
except one, which contained three nearly fresh eggs, white, richly 
marked with chestnut-brown. The parent birds evinced great 
anxiety for their young as they hopped out of their nests, on my 
approach, into the water, flapping their wings and trying to swim, 
and descended on to the nests fearlessly within a few yards of me. 
In the old birds, as far as I could see, the legs and feet were red 
or pink (not black, as in P. leucorodia), and the young birds were 
white, with black tips to the primaries; bill livid grey ; legs and 
feet grey. Not bad eating. The bulrushes, in which the nests 
were found, were growing in water about three or four feet deep.’ ” 
Mr. Ayres has sent it from the Transvaal, and Sir John Kirk states 
that it was not unfrequent on the Zambesi and at Lake Nyassa. 
Mr. Andersson gives the following note:—‘‘ This species 
occasionally visits Damara Land, chiefly during the rainy season, 
when I have reason to believe that it also occurs, though less 
frequently, in Great Namaqua Land. At Lake N’gami and its 
watersheds it is by no means an uncommon bird. It is generally 
observed in small flocks; and where not much disturbed, it is not 
particularly shy. It feeds.on fish, shrimps, small mollusca, &c. ; 
and the stomach of one which I dissected contained a large number 
of beetles, chiefly aquatic.” The late Mr. Monteiro met with it in 
Benguela, and Senor Anchieta has procured it at Mossamedes and 
Humbe. 
General colour, white; the shafts of the larger wing-feathers, 
and the tips of the first four or five, being dark brown ; fore part 
of head bare, and of a bright vermilion; the bill very narrow, but 
expanding at the tip mto a broad spoon. Length, 33’; wing, 154”; 
tail, 44”. 
