PLA TA L EIDM— GL OSSY IBIS. 1 89 



yards of it, as it was feeding with its head under water. He called to it to make 

 il rise, and shot it when thirty or forty yards distant. A second shot from a 

 barrel loaded, like the first, with No. 2 shot was necessary,i and even then it 

 flew on to within iifty yards of the river, where it dropped dead with its wings 

 stretched out on the ground. This was in the parish of Stoke Nayland. Although 

 Col. Rowley wanted the bird Mr. Mortimer kept it and had it very nicely mounted 

 by Ambrose, of Colchester. Mr. Mortimer says he shot it in the month of May, 

 but this is clearly an error of memory. He also says another specimen was 

 reported as having been seen about the same time, but he does not believe in it 

 (Fitch). 



Family PLATALEID^. 



Spoonbill : Platalca kucorodia. 



Once a resident, breeding in various countie.s, including Norfolk, 



Sussex, Middlesex, but now for a long time only a rare straggler 



chiefly when on migration in spring and autumn. That it formerly 



bred also in Essex is more than probable, although there is, I believe, 



no actual record of its so doing. 



Sheppard ani Whitear say (9. 42) " ii has been shot on the River Stour." Mr, 

 Kerry says (40. i. 52) one was shot on Oct. 20th, 1876, on the mud-flats of the 

 Stour by a wild-fowler named Porter, who consigned it to the spit (^Chelmsford 

 Chronicle^ Nov. 2). Mr. Hope writes : " I have seen them fly by. Two which 

 did so were eventually shot in the month of May, near Bawdsey in Suffolk ; they 

 were found to contain eggs and were bought by Mr. Robert Hillen of Woodbridge," 

 This is an interesting fact, as it indicates a still-surviving inclination to breed in 

 this countr}-. One was shot at Mersea in 1863 by Mr. Geo. Mason (Pettitt). A 

 sternum and furculum in the collection of the late Dr. Bree, now in the possession 

 of Mr. Harwood, bear the following label : " Shot at Harwich, June, 1877. Two 

 were shot out of a flock of nine." They were preserved by Ambrose (32a). One 

 was seen in Aug., 188S, on the mud-fiats between Harwich and Walton-on-the- 

 Naze (Kerry). At the end of Dec, 1889, three were shot out of a flock of 

 seven, by one of Mr. Patmore's dredger-men at Burnham (Fitch). 1 saw one of 

 these at Maldon on Jan. 4th last. 



Glossy Ibis : Pkgadis falcindlus. 



A rare straggler to the British Isles. The only one recorded to 

 have been met with in Essex was shot by Mr. J. F. T. Wiseman 

 when snipe-shooting on Oct. 15th, 1872, and is now in his posses- 

 sion. It rose from the old decoy pond on one of Mr. AViseman's 

 farms on the South Hall Marshes, Paglesham, and was preserved by 

 Travis (35. 440). It is an immature bird. 



[Flamingo ; Phcenicopterus roseus. 



The grounds on which some writers have admitted this bird to the 

 British List seem to me, on the whole, too slight. There is one Essex 

 record. Yarrell mentions one seen on our coast in 1873 (37. iv. 245) and 

 afterwards shot in the Isle of Sheppey, on Aug. l6th. It seems in every 

 way probable that this was a specimen known to have escaped from the 

 Zoological Gardens on July i6th in the same year.] 



