io8 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



and tail-feathers ; a large nuchal crest of pointed and droop- 

 ing plumes ; on the crown and fore-neck a tinge of tawny or 

 cinnamon-buff; bill deep slate-colour, irregularly barred with 

 black, and having a yellow patch on the under-part ; feet black ; 

 iris crimson. Total length, 38 inches; culmen, 8'i ; wing, 

 14-9; tail, 47; tarsus, 57. 



Adult Female, Similar to the male. 



Winter Plumage. White as in the breeding-plumage, but want- 

 ing the crest of drooping plumes. Bare space before the eye 

 flesh-colour or greenish-yellow ; eyelid yellow. 



Young Birds. White all over as in the winter plumage of the 

 adults, and equally devoid of crest-plumes ; the primary- 

 coverts and quills with black shafts, the outer primaries also 

 blackish along the outer webs and at the tips ; bill yellow, or, 

 as the spring advances, pale inky-black, mottled with yellow 

 at the tip ; the bare skin of the chin yellow ; feet and claws 

 black ; iris red. 



Nestling. Covered with white down, the throat and loral 

 region bare as in old birds ; bill yellow. 



Bange in Great Britain. To the east and south of England and 

 the south of Ireland the Spoon-bill is still an occasional visitor, 

 but north of Yorkshire and in Scotland its occurrences have 

 been less numerous. A Devonshire specimen from Colonel 

 Montagu's collection is in the British Museum, as well as the 

 bill of one which I shot in the Hoy near New Romney several 

 years ago when collecting in company with Dr. Gordon Hogg. 

 We were shooting some Terns, as the tide swept in, just as 

 darkness was coming on, when a great bird hove in sight which 

 I took to be a Gull at the time. In the failing light we could 

 not find the place where it dropped, and the tide compelled 

 us to retreat. A week later I found its body washed up into 

 some reeds, and past all preserving. 



In olden times, the Spoon-bill, or " Shoveler " and " Shove- 

 lard," as it was called, bred in England, not only in Norfolk 

 and Suffolk, but, as Mr. Harting has shown, near Goodwood, 

 and at Fulham near London. It has long been extinguished as 

 a breeding-species with us. 



Eange outside the British Islands. The Spoon-bill is everywhere 



