142 Order VI 



the flocks pass at immense altitudes. Anatomically 

 they are closely connected with Herons and their food 

 is identical, at least in the case of the present species. 

 It breeds on trees, towers, houses or their chimneys, 

 and often on cart-wheels purposely erected on poles ; 

 the three to five eggs are white with a coarsely grained 

 shell. The Black Stork is an irregular visitor to us, 

 and will be found in the subsequent list, while the 

 Glossy Ibis comes in the same category, at least nowa- 

 days. 



Family PL AT ALE ID JE, or Spoonbills 



Far different is the case with the Spoonbill (Platalea 

 leuc-orodia), which still strays frequently to our shores, 

 notably those of Breydon Water near Yarmouth in 

 Norfolk. This fine white bird, with its black and yellow 

 bill expanding into a flat " spoon " at the end and its 

 red eyes, used to nest until the twelfth century or later 

 both in Norfolk and Suffolk, and four centuries after- 

 wards in Middlesex, Sussex, and Pembrokeshire. There 

 it bred in high trees, often among the Herons, but in 

 Holland, southern Spain, and the Danube region it 

 usually selects reed-beds or bushy trees. It does not 

 now pass the summer hi France, but is found at that 

 season in north Africa and across Asia to China and 

 Ceylon. Some half-a-dozen eggs are deposited on 

 a mass of reeds or the like, according to situation ; 

 they have a rough white shell, but are prettily marked 

 with reddish brown. The Spoonbill hardly utters any 

 cries, but is not a very shy bird ; its diet includes 

 fish, frogs, mollusks, crustaceans, and insects, most of 

 its food being obtained by moving round and round 



