4 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



of the elongated neck. The legs, shorter than in other Herodiones, are covered 

 either with numerous small scales, front and back, or with large plates in front 

 only. The toes are more or less webbed at the base, and the middle claw is not 

 pectinate. There are no powder-down areas among their plumage. The wings 

 are long, and the tail, generally composed of twelve feathers, is short. The full 

 grown female resembles the male ; but the young differ from the adult birds. They 

 moult twice in the year, in spring and in autumn. They nest in trees and 

 produce white eggs. 



Although the Ibises are specially associated by name with Egypt and 

 Northern Africa, they are widely distributed over the globe, and the family 

 contains numerous species, which are comprised in some eighteen genera. They 

 are not and never have been indigenous to Britain, and one genus alone — Plegadis 

 — has been represented by a single species in this country; whither, by to them 

 an ill wind, a few individuals stray from time to time. In this genus the species 

 differ from the typical Ibises in having the throat and head feathered, while the 

 neck is covered with very short plumage, and the thighs are bare for the greater 

 part of their length. The posterior ends of the rami of the lower jaw extend 

 behind the articular facet of the skull, and terminate in a recurved process. 



The last family of British Herodiones, the Plataleida, or Spoonbills, is distin- 

 guished from not only all the other families of the Order to which they belong, 

 but, indeed, from all other birds, by the singular shape of the bill, which is broad, 

 flat, and soft at the base, then narrow toward the middle, and rounded and 

 spoon-like at its termination. With this exception, they are closely related in 

 structure to the Ibises; indeed, they are often spoken of as Ibises with flattened 

 and expanded beaks. The head is partly bare in some species; in others it is 

 quite bare, while several are crested. There are only a few species of Spoonbills, 

 included in two or three genera. The only genus represented in Britain is Platalea, 

 distinguished by a bare head, except for a patch of feathers over the ears; the 

 position of the nostrils is also peculiar ; they open in an elongated oval, situated 

 in a narrow depression " which loses itself," as Dr. Sharpe observes, " about the 

 commencement of the narrowest part of the bill, and is continued in a narrow sub- 

 marginal line which runs to the tip of the bill." In flight and habits they are 

 Stork- like; but unlike the Cicomidcs, and agreeing with the Ibises, they probe 

 with their beaks for food. 



HENRY O. FORBES. 



ANNA FORBES. 



