CHAPTER XI 



THE WHITE SPOONBILL 



That very interesting bird, the White Spoonbill, 

 once nested in this country, establishing itself in 

 the trees in the same manner that the Herons do 

 at the present day. Sussex was one of the counties 

 it nested in, and it now visits us occasionally. Al- 

 though a rare visitor, it has been shot on the 

 marshes which I know so well. When Spoonbills 

 come, the Gulls persecute them terribly, driving the 

 poor strangers all over the mud-flats. The late 

 E. T. Booth shot a female Spoonbill on Breydon 

 mud-flats, near Yarmouth, in May 1871, and a male 

 of the same species on the same flats in May 1873. 

 Both these birds are in his matchless collection. 

 In June 1873 he shot a very rare visitor, nothing 

 less than a fine White Stork, on Rush Hills, near 

 Potter Heigham, in Norfolk, where the White 

 Spoonbill also nested in past years. In some 

 records of 1668, these Spoonbills are mentioned as 

 Shovelardes " — white birds with spoon-shaped bills 

 and capped (crested) crowns which built in trees. 

 Now this description is definite enough to prove 

 that the " Shovelarde " must be the Spoonbill, as 



the Shoveller Duck does not answer to it. 



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