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SOUTH- WESTERN ASIA 



resemble the storks. The legs are proportionately longer than those of the true 

 ibises, and covered with hexagonal scales ; the tail is straight, and the beak broad 

 and expanding at the tip into the spoon from which these birds derive their name. 

 The common spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) haunts the marshes and fens, and nests 

 either on grassy tussocks or on trees, sometimes in numbers on one tree which is 

 always near or in the water. The young, which remain in the nest till fully 

 fledged and able to find their own food, are brought up like storks, but their food 

 consists of insects and crustaceans, fishes, molluscs, frogs, and all kinds of aquatic 

 animals, for which the bird searches the water in duck-fashion with its spoon- 

 shaped beak. It breeds as far north as Holland and straggles into Great Britain 

 and Scandinavia. It is common in Spain and in the plains of the Danube, where 



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PRATINCOLES. 



Pratincoles. 



in some localities it breeds in thousands. Everywhere it is very local though it 

 ranges right across Asia to Japan and down north-eastern Africa to Abyssinia. In 

 Length the spoonbill measures about 38 inches. The plumage is wholly white, 

 and the slate-coloured beak barred with black and yellow at the tip. 



Of the active little birds known as pratincoles, the Mediterranean 

 region possesses one representative. The distinctive characteristics 

 of these birds are the short, more or less bent beak, the very long middle toe, of 

 which the claw is comb-like, and the long pointed wings, extending beyond the 

 tail, which is frequently forked. The pratincoles, which are spread over Europe, 

 Asia, Africa, and Australia, are all alike in their habits, the one found in the 

 Mediterranean area (Glareola pratincola) frequenting treeless steppes traversed 

 by -hallow rivers with Hat shores. Although as much in need of water as the 



