SPOONB/LL gol 
(Zool. 1886, pp. 81 et seqg.) cites a case from the “ Year-Book” of 14 
Hen. VIII. (1523), wherein the Bishop of London (Cuthbert Tunstall) 
maintained an action of trespass against a tenant at Fulham for 
taking Herons and “Shovelars” that made their nests on the trees 
there, and has also printed (Zool. 1877, p. 425) a document shewing 
that ‘“Shovelers” bred in certain woods in west Sussex in 1570. 
In George Owen’s Description of Penbrokshire, written in 1602 
(ed. 1892, p. 131), the “Shovler” was stated to breed “on highe 
trees” in that county, and nearly sixty years later (circa 1662) Sir 
Thomas Browne, in his Account of Birds found in Norfolk (Works, ed. 
Wilkin, iv. pp. 315, 316), stated of the ‘‘Platea or Shouelard” that it 
formerly “built in the Hernerie at Claxton and Reedham, now at 
Trimley in Suffolk.” This last seems to be the latest known proof of 
the breeding of the species in England; but that it was in the fullest 
sense of the word a “native” of England and Wales is thus incon- 
testably shewn; though for many years past it has only been a 
more or less regular visitant, not seldom in considerable numbers, 
which would doubtless, if allowed, once more make their home here ; 
but its conspicuous appearance renders it an easy mark for the 
gunner and the collector. What may have been the case on the 
continent formerly is not known, except that, according to Belon, it 
nested in his time (1555) in the borders of Britanny and Poitou ; 
but as regards north-western Europe it seems of late years to have 
bred only in Holland, and there it has been deprived by drainage 
of its favourite resorts, one aiter the other, so that it must shortly 
become merely a stranger, except in Spain or the basin of the 
Danube and other parts of south-eastern Europe. 
The Spoonbill ranges over the greater part of middle and 
southern Asia, and breeds abundantly in India, as well as on some 
of the islands in the Red Sea, and seems to be resident throughout 
Northern Africa. In Southern Africa its place is taken by an 
allied species with red legs, P. cristata or tenuirostris, which also 
goes to Madagascar. Japan, Corea and Eastern China possess 
also a smaller species, P. minor, while a distinct one, P. intermedia, 
is said to be found in New Guinea. Australia has two other species, 
P. regia or melanorhynchus, with black bill and feet, and P. flavipes, 
in which those parts are yellow. The very beautiful and wholly 
different P. ajaja is the Roseate Spoonbill of America, and is the 
only one found on that continent, the tropical or juxta-tropical 
parts of which it inhabits. The rich pink, deepening in some parts 
into crimson, of nearly all its plumage, together with the yellowish- 
green of its bare head and its lake-coloured legs, sufficiently marks 
this bird; but all the other species are almost wholly clothed in 
pure white, though the English has, when adult, a fine buff pectoral 
band, and the spoon-shaped expanse of its bill is yellow, contrasting 
with the black of the compressed and basal portion. Its legs are 
