SPOONCILIi.— P;aici?ca leucorddia. 



feed upon almost any kind of animal or vegetable matter, providing it be soft and moist. 

 The beak of an adult Spoonbill is about eight inches in length, very nmch flattened, and 

 is channelled and grooved at the base. In some countries the beak is taken from the bird, 

 scraped very thin, and polished, and is then used as a spoon, and is thought a valuable 

 article, being sometimes set in silver. 



It has often been found in this country, but is now very scarce, owing to the increasing 

 drainage of marshy soil. The breediug-places of the Spoonbill are usually open trees, 

 the banks of rivers, or in little islands and tufts of aquatic herbage. In the latter cases 

 the nest is rather large, and is made of reeds piled loosely together, and set on a foundation 

 of water-weeds heaped sufliciently high to keep the eggs from the wet. There is no lining 

 to the nest. The eggs are generally four in number, and their colour is greyish white, 

 spotted with rather pale rusty brown. 



The Spoonbill seems to have no power of modulating its voice, a peculiarity which is 

 explained by the structure of the windpipe. Upon dissecting one of these birds, the 

 windpipe is seen to be bent into a kind of 8-like shape, the coils not crossing, but just 

 applied to each other, and held in their place by a thin membrane. At the junction of the 

 windpipe with the bronchial tubes that communicate with the lungs, there is none of the 

 bony structure nor the muscular development by which the modulations of the voice are 

 effected, and which are found so strougly developed in the singing and talking birds. This 

 curious formation does not exist in the very young bird, and only assumes its perfect form 

 when the Spoonbill has arrived at full age. 



The colour of the adult bird is pure white, with the slightest imaginable tinge of soft 

 pink. At the junction of the neck with the breast there is a band of buffy yellow. The 



