650 



system! tic synopsis. — HEBODIONES — IBIBES. 



chin, Etnd not quite separated from the bare loral space, because the feathers on the side of the 

 jaw stop a little short of the hard base of the mandible. Young, first plumage (with traces of 

 down stiU) : Remarkably lustrous. Plumage entirely green ; legs black ; bill blackish, irreg- 

 ularly blotched or regularly banded with pinkish-white. This green unicolor plumage, consti- 

 tuting Ibis thalassmus of some, is retained till fuU growth, gradually giving way through a 





*V'^ 



Pig. 454. — European Spoonbill, Platalea leucorodia, i nat. size. (From Brebm. ) 

 brownish or grayish to the purple-chestnut and iridescent plumage. Chicks hatch clothed in 

 blackish down, with whitish bill. Southwestern U. S., especially Texas ; N. to Kansas ; W. 

 through New Mexico and Arizona to California (to Oregon?), and far S. in tropical America. 

 Swarming by thousands at some points along the Rio Grande. Nest in vast heronries with 

 various herons, in the beds of reeds and rushes, rising in air by "hundreds of acres " when a gun 

 is fired. Nest strongly and compactly woven of dead reeds, aifixed by twining to broken down 



