PLATALEID.E. 107 



collection of Mr. E. H. Eodd, where we have seen it. There is no Cornish 

 example ; but two are recorded from Dorsetshire, both of them obtained 

 near Poole, when the small estuary which goes by the name of Poole Harbour 

 was, in old days, a celebrated gathering-place for rare Waders, Geese, and 

 "Wild Ducks of all kinds, as those who can recall the mighty doings of 

 Colonel Hawker and his punt-gun will be aware. One of these, shot on 

 November 22, 183!), passed into the collection of the late Earl of Malmcs- 

 bury, at Heron Court ; while the other, shot in Poole Harbour in the 

 Lutumn of 1849, is in the collection of Mr. J, H. Gurney. Another, seen 

 in 1857 at Lodmoor, near Weymouth, was not obtained (Mansel-Pleydell, 

 ' Birds of Dorset,' p. 133). 



In ' The Ibis ' for 180 1, p. 372, are some interesting particulars con- 

 cerning the nesting of the Plack Stork in Bulgaria. 



One was shot on the Taniar (or the Lynber, a tributary of that river on the Cornish 

 side), on Xovember 5tb, 1831, and is iu tbe collection formed by the late Mr. E. H. 

 Rodd, of Penzance (E. M., Mag. Nat. Hist. 1837, p. 321 ; and Rowe's ' Peramb. 

 Dartmoor,' 1848, p. 231 ; Rodd, Zool. p. 2147, and ' Birds of Cornwall,' p. 126 ; Couch, 

 ' Cornisb Fauna '). 



On 12tb February, 1855, when the cold was extremely severe, a large bird was seen 

 on the Exe near Topshaui, which, from the description gi\en to us ai the time by a 

 man who got within twenty yards of it, and failed to shoot it, owing to his gun missing 

 fire, could have been nothing else than a Black Stork. Curiously enough, about a week 

 previously, what was supposed to be a gigantic Heron had been seen near the same 

 spot. 



Family PLATALEID^. 

 Spoonbill. Platalea leucorodia, Linn. 



A casual visitor, usually during the autumn and winter months. The 

 specimens obtained are generally immature. 



Very many years ago this strange-looking bird was a resident in this 

 country. If we go as far back as the reign of Henry VIII., according 

 to Mr. J. E. Harting (' Zoologist,' 1880, p. 81), the Shovelard, as it was 

 then called, used to place its great nests in the elms in the Bishop of 

 London's grounds at Fulham ; that place, as we are told, meaning Fowl- 

 home, and even taking its name from the birds ! But it is now moro 

 than two hundred years since there was a Spoonbill's nest in England, and 

 the bird is only an occasional visitor, chiolly iu tlie winter, to the West 

 Country, although tlicre are some few instances in which it has been seen 

 in the spring. As it is still common in Holland, our eastern coasts are 

 more often visited by this bird, as is to be expected, and hardly a year 

 pas.scs without some being obtained in tlie l*iastern (Jountics, and tliat at 

 the season of tlie ^jirint/ migrations. Sulhcient numbers have ]n'cn met 

 with in Devonshire to remove it from the list of our rarer birds, and small 

 Jlocks have even occurred in the far West. Thus, in tlio third week of 

 October, in 18 13, as many as nineteen Spoonbills were seen near Newcpiay, 

 in Cornwall (Dr. JiuUmore) ; and on tlio opposilo coast of the Mristol 

 Channel, iu the winter of 1854, eleven were shot on the shores of Milford 



