Mr. W. R. Ogilvie-Grant on the Genus Platalea. 47 



p. 231). Raipur (Hume^ /. c). Oodavery River : In flocks 

 and occasionally on the smaller streams. Breeds during the 

 month of April (Burgess^ P. Z. S. 1855, p. 71). Khmideish : 

 Winter visitant, not common anywhere (Davidson, Str. F. 

 1881, p. 324). Deccan (Fairhank, Str. F. 1876, p. 264) : 

 Common and breeds in April and May (Davidson & Wenden, 

 Str. F. 1878, ii. p. 91). S. Konkan: A straggler (Vidal, Str. 

 F. 1880, p. 91). 



Ceylon. Not an uncommon bird in the south-east of 

 Ceylon and in the tank-districts of the northern half of the 

 island (Legge, ' Birds of Ceylon,^ p. 1097) . 



Egypt and Nubia. Very plentiful throughout. It may 

 constantly be seen in flocks on the sand-banks of the river 

 and in the great marshy lakes of Lower Egypt and Fayoom 

 (Shelley, ' Handb. B. Egypt,^ p. 264). Abundant, but very 

 wild and difficult to shoot (Taylor, Ibis, 1859, p. 51). 



The above references are only those which I can con- 

 fidently refer to this species ; all the doubtful ones have been 

 omitted, as it is frequently quite uncertain whether the speci- 

 mens mentioned by the different writers about Japan and 

 China belonged to the above or to P. minor. 



Platalea alba, Scop. 



Prof. Milne-Edwards and M. Grandidier, while writing on 

 this Spoonbill (P. tenuirostris, ' Histoire de Madagascar, 

 Oiseaux,^ ii. p. 524), remark, in a footnote, that it is by 

 accident that ornithologists up to the present time have re- 

 garded the Madagascar (and African) species as identical 

 with the White Spoonbill and the Crested Spoonbill, of which 

 Sonuerat gives descriptions in his * Voyage a la Nouvelle 

 Guinee ' and his ' Voyage aux Indes et en Chine ' [Platalea 

 cristata, Scopoli, and P. luzoniensis, Bonaparte) ; for, con- 

 trary to what people have thought, a Spoonbill is found in 

 Luzon, M. Baer having killed one there, which M. Oustalet 

 has had in his hands^ and which ditters from P. tenuirostris. 



The above-mentioned authors do not mention to what 

 species the bird in question belonged, nor do they tell us 

 that it was identical with Sonnerat's species. Their argu- 



