BOAT-BILL. — Cdncroma cochhdria. 



upon the prey below. It is not a large bird, the body being hardly bigger than that of a 

 common duck, and the legs are rather short in j^roportion to the size of the body. 



The adult male bird has the top of the head decorated with a long and full plume of 

 jetty black feathers, pointed and drooping over the back. In the female the elongated 

 feathers are wanting. The tuft or plume of the neck and breast is greyish white. The 

 feathers of the back are elongated, and their colour is grey with occasionally a wash of 

 rusty red ; there is also a patch of the same hue, but of a deeper tone, upon the middle 

 of the under surface. The tail is white and the sides black. The bill is blackish brown, 

 and the legs nearly of the same colour, but not quite so dark. Specimens of this bird 

 have been kept in England, and were fed principally upon fish. 



The well-known Spoonbill affords another instance of the endless variety of forms 

 assumed by the same organ under different conditions ; both the beak and the windpipe 

 being modified in a very remarkable manner. 



Tlie Spoonbill has a very wide range of country, being spread over the greater part of 

 Europe and Asia, and inliabiting a portion of Africa. Like the bird to which it is closely 

 allieLl, this species is one of the waders, frequenting the waters, and obtaining a subsistence 

 from the fish, reptiles, and smaller aquatic inhabitants, which it captures in the broad 

 spoon-like extremity of its beak. It is also fond of frequenting the sea-shore, where 

 it finds a bountiful supply of food along the edge of the waves and in the little pools that 

 are left by the retiring waters, where shrimps, crabs, sand-hoppers, and similar animals are 

 crowded closely together as the water sinks through the sand. The bird also eats some 

 vegetable substances, such as the roots of aquatic herbage, and when in confinement will 



