SPAR—SPOONBILL. 220 
Spence. A Shetland name for the STORM-PETREL. It is in 
use in the Island of Yell. Swainson gives the name as 
Spency for the Shetland Isles and the same spelling is given 
by Montagu, while Saxby prints it Spencie. 
Sprvue, Spruc, or Sprout. Names for the HOUSE-SPARROW. 
See also Spug. 
SprpER-caTcHER: The WALLCREEPER. Occurs in Wil- 
lughby. 
SprmpEer-piveER: The LITTLE GREBE. (Provincial.) 
Spink. An English provincial name for the CHAFFINCH. 
From its note. Occurs in Turner (1544). Also applied in 
Yorkshire to the YELLOW BUNTING. 
SprsneR: The NIGHTJAR. (Wexford.) 
Spirit Duck: The BUFFEL-HEADED DUCK. From its 
quickness in diving. 
Sprit Straw: The WHITETHROAT. (Cheshire.) 
Spoc-r1-Tom: The LITTLE GREBE. (Western Isles of 
Scotland.) 
SPOONBILL [No. 258]. Anciently called Popeler, Shovelard, 
or Shovelar, and perhaps “Liver ” (q.v.), the name Spoon- 
bill having been transferred to this species from the Shoveler 
Duck, the bills of both birds being spatulate at the end. 
Although now only a scarce and irregular visitor to our 
shores, the Shovelar or Popeler is recorded as breeding in 
several places in Norfolk about the year 1300, where it no 
doubt continued to do so for two or three centuries, while 
Mr. Harting has shown thatin 1523 it is recorded as breeding 
on the Bishop of London’s property at Fulham (“‘ Zool.,” 
1886, p. 81), and also in 1570 in West Sussex (ib., 1877, 
p. 425). The latest record of its breeding in England 
appears to be Sir Thomas Browne’s statement that it 
“now” (ca. 1662) bred at Trimley in Suffolk. Turner, how- 
ever, who calls it merely “ Shovelard,” says nothing about 
its breeding with us in his day, and in fact says little about 
it beyond repeating the legend of Aristotle and Pliny that 
it devours biggish shell-fish and casts them up again when 
dead and gaping to pick and eat them. He also repeats the 
tradition of Hieronymus that when they find their young 
killed by a serpent they ‘“‘ mourn and beat themselves upon 
their sides, and with the blood discharged they bring back 
to life the bodies of the dead,” which is one of the legends 
later attributed to the Pelican, owing to the confusion of 
names, the present species having formerly been so called 
(see PELICAN.) 
