180 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
reference to the peculiar shape of the Spoonbill’s beak, having 
in fact the same signification as shouelard, and other cognate 
names in use in Europe. 
Dean Turner was apparently not aware of Spoonbills 
breeding in England, but there really is nothing remarkable 
in his reticence on this point. At the same time his incidental 
reference to the Spoonbill in identifying the Albardeola of 
Aristotle.* is not suggestive of its being very rare in this 
country. Butit certainly is very strange that the circumstance 
of Spoonbills breeding, or having once bred, in England was 
unknown at a much later date to two such careful collectors 
of facts as Francis Willughby and John Ray (to say nothing 
of Merrett), both of whom were in correspondence with Sir 
Thomas Browne, who was quite aware of the fact. 
Considering its known range. the Spoonbill is not very 
likely ever to have bred in Scotland, where Sibbald, writing 
in 1684, merely says of it: “‘ Huc advolat quandoque,” nor 
is there the slightest evidence of its having nested in Ireland. 
Spoonbills and Young Herons considered a Delicacy.— 
Throughout the records of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries we get many hints that fish-eating birds, both those 
frequenting fresh water and those from the shore, were thought 
worthy of the best tables. Young Solan Geese, which, as Ray 
said of them, ‘“‘ both smell and taste of herrings,’ were in high 
favour, and other birds which we should now think very rank. 
That Spoonbills were considered not only quite fit for the 
board, but when young, an equal delicacy with Herons is 
certain, of which there is plenty of evidence, apart from 
their protection by legislation. At the same time the Spoon- 
bill was only a summer visitor, not to be looked for at winter 
festivities, when the Crane and the Bittern were in season. 
One passage furnished by Master Robert Laneham deserves 
to be quoted.f He is treating of the sumptuous entertain- 
ment provided for Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth in Warwick- 
shire in July 1575. Describing the preparations, Laneham 
* Evans's translation of Turner, p. 39. Turner’s remarks are, as usual, 
repeated by Gesner, from whose pages we judge the Albardeola to have been 
one of the Egrets. 
+ ‘The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth,” by 
J. Nichols, Vol. I, p. 432. 
