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ROSEATE SPOONBILL. 
PLATALEA AJAJA, Linn. 
PLATE CCCXXI. Aputtr Mate. 
Tus beautiful and singular bird, although a constant resident in the 
southern extremities of the peninsula of Florida, seldom extends its 
journeys in an eastern direction beyond the State of North Carolina. 
Indeed it is of extremely rare occurrence there, and even in South Ca- 
rolina, my friend Joun Bacuman informs me that he has observed 
only three individuals in the course of twenty years. He once obtained 
a specimen in full plumage about ten miles north of Charleston. It is 
rarely seen in the interior of the country, at any distance from the wa- 
ters of the Atlantic, or those of the Gulf of Mexico. A specimen sent 
to Witson at Philadelphia from the neighbourhood of the city of 
Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, appears to have lost itself, as 
during my stay in that section of the country I never heard of another ; 
nor have I ever met with one of these birds farther up the Mississippi 
than about thirty miles from its mouths. Although rather abundant on 
some parts of the coast of Florida, I found it more so along the Bay of 
Mexico, particularly in Galveston Bay in the Texas, where, as well as 
on the Florida Keys, it breeds in flocks. The Spoonbills are so sensible 
of cold, that those which spend the winter on the Keys, near Cape Sable 
in Florida, rarely leave those parts for the neighbourhood of St Augus- 
tine before the first days of March. But after this you may find them 
along most of the water courses running parallel to the coast, and dis- 
tant about half a mile or a mile from it. I saw none on any part of 
the St John’s River; and from all the answers which I obtained to my 
various inquiries respecting this bird, I feel confident that it never 
breeds in the interior of the peninsula, nor is ever seen there in winter. 
The Roseate Spoonbill is found for the most part along the marshy 
and muddy borders of estuaries, the mouths of rivers, ponds, or sea 
islands or keys partially overgrown with bushes, and perhaps still more 
commonly along the shores of those singular salt-water bayous so 
abundant within a mile or so of the shores, where they can reside 
