The Zoologist — January, 1866. 35 



north in the breeding season, retiring again in the autumn and towards winter to the 

 southern countries of Europe and the north of Africa. The only way to account for 

 the regular hyemal visits of the frreal jilover to this district is that the extreme southern 

 latitude of the British Isles, which may be included between the Lizard Point and the 

 Land's End, is the exact northern boundary of the space occupied by the species in 

 its winter quarters. — Edward Heark Rodd. 



On the Occurrence of the Spoonbill in Middlesex. 

 By J. Edmund Harting, Esq. F.L.S. 



Until the present year I was not aware that the spoonbill {Platalea 

 leucorodia) has ever been obtained in Middlesex, nor have 1 been able 

 to find any record of its appearance in this county. 



On the 24th of October last I was informed that a pair of spoonbills 

 had been shot at Kingsbury Reservoir on the previous day. Believing 

 such an occurrence very improbable, 1 required some evidence to 

 confirm the statement, more especially as on several former occasions 

 I had been led to believe in the capture of a rare species, which 

 proved on examination to be quite a different bird to that described. 

 On one occasion a so-called spoonbill, which I look the trouble of 

 tracing, turned out to be a shoveller <i!uck, and at another time a pair 

 of " longtailed ducks with white heads," instead of being Anas gla- 

 cialis as I had been led to suppose, proved to be merely a couple of 

 male widgeons. 



I therefore received the intelligence of the spoonbills last month 

 with a certain amount of doubt; but ascertaining that the birds had 

 been sent to London for preservation, I traced them the following 

 morning to the bird-staffer with whom they had been left, and luckily 

 arrived in time to find them still in the flesh and perfectly fi-esh. To 

 my agreeable surprise 1 found that they were veritable spoonbills. I 

 at once set to work to examine them carefully, and note down the 

 description and measuremetits of each ; and the same evening I saw 

 them skinned, and ascertained the sexes by dissection. 



Before stating these details, however, it will perhaps be as well to 

 give first the particulars of their capture, which I subsequently ascer- 

 tained. The birds were first observed at Kingsbury Reservoir, close 

 to the edge of the water, and, on being disturbed and ineffectually 

 shot at, flew to some little distance, and alighted near a flock of geese 

 in a field adjoining a farm-yard. Thither they were pursued by two 

 gunners, who finding, however, that the birds were very shy and 



