THE WHITE SPOONBILL. 



Platalea LEVcnnnniA. Linn. 



There is perhaps no organ the modifications of which 

 are so infinitely varied or have such influence on the 

 physiognomical expression of birds as the bill. In the 

 shape of this distinguishing feature nature appears to 

 have exhausted every possible kind of variation, and 

 sometimes even to have amused herself, if the expres- 

 sion may be allowed, with uniting in the same natural 

 family forms the most dissimilar. Thus it may appear 

 startling to some of our readers, but it is nevertheless 

 an indisputable fact, that there is the closest affinity 

 between the Spoonbills and the Storks, notwithstand- 

 ing the great discrepancy which at first sight seems to 

 exist between the conical tapering and pointed bill of 

 the latter, and the broad, flat, and expanded figure of 

 the same organ in the former, from which they derive 



