264 



ORDERS OF BIRDS— HERONS, STORKS AND IBISES 



THE SPOONBILL FAMILY. 



Plntalciddc. 



The Roseate Spoonbill, 1 or Pink "Curlew," 



is the only member of the Spoonbill Family in 

 America, and it is also the farthest from the 

 type of the Order Herodiones. It is really an 

 ibis with a wide bill which terminates in two 

 rounded, flat plates, nearly two inches wide. 

 When standing erect, it is about 16 inches high. 

 Its body plumage is either rosy gray or white, 

 and its wing coverts and secondaries are tinted 

 a delicate and very beautiful rose-madder pink, 

 the color being most intense on the lesser coverts. 



Once quite abundant throughout the lagoons, 

 streams and swampy districts of Florida, this 

 beautiful bird is now so nearly extinct there 

 that no live specimens have been obtainable 

 nearer than the Gulf coast of Mexico. Indeed, 

 until very recently there were good reasons for 

 the belief that not one Roseate Spoonbill re- 

 mained alive anywhere in Florida. Now, how- 

 ever, it is a pleasure to record the fact that this 

 species has not wholly disappeared from our 

 avifauna. 



In The Auk for January, 1904, Mr. A. C. Bent 

 describes the finding of a few small flocks of these 

 birds near Cape Sable, which he found nesting 

 in two localities. "The principal breeding- 

 ground of the Roseate Spoonbills was a great 

 morass on the borders of Alligator Lake, a few 

 miles back from the coast near Cape Sable, where 

 the mangrove islands in which the birds were 

 nesting were well protected by impenetrable 

 jungles of saw-grass, treacherous mud-holes, 

 and apparently bottomless creeks. . . . The 

 Spoonbills were here in abundance, and had 

 eggs and young in their nests, in all stages, as 

 well as fully grown young climbing about in the 

 trees. The old birds were tamer than at Cuth- 

 bert Lake, and allowed themselves to be photo- 

 graphed at a reasonable distance. 

 1 A-ja'i-a a-ja'i-a. 



"The Spoonbills," continues Mr. Bent, "will 

 probably be the next to disappear from the list 

 of Florida water-birds. They are already much 

 reduced in numbers and restricted in habitat. 

 They are naturally shy and their rookeries are 

 easily broken up. Their plumage makes them 

 attractive marks for the tourist's gun, and they 

 are killed by the natives for food. But fortu- 

 nately their breeding-places are remote, and 

 almost inaccessible; and through the earnest 

 efforts of the A. O. U. wardens they are now 

 protected. It is to be hoped that adequate 

 protection in the future will result in the 

 preservation of this unique and interesting 

 species." 



The nests found by Mr. Bent on Cuthbert 

 Lake, almost on the edge of the Everglades, 

 were built in red mangrove-trees on the edge of 

 the water, all on nearly horizontal branches, 

 from 12 to 15 feet from the ground. "They 

 were well made, of large sticks, deeply hollowed, 

 and lined with strips of bark and water-moss. 

 One nest contained only a single, heavily in- 

 cubated egg, one a handsome set of three eggs, 

 and the other held two downy young, not quite 

 half grown." 



In my opinion, there is no "cause," either 

 existent or creatable, not even the " cause of 

 science," which could justify the killing or capt- 

 ure of any of the birds composing those last 

 small flocks of Spoonbills. Not even the ne- 

 cessities of a zoological garden should for one 

 moment be accepted as an excuse for meddling 

 with that avian remnant; and let no hunter 

 think of offering a bargain in live Spoonbills 

 frdm Cape Sable, or of now writing to ask "What 

 will you give? " 



It is to be hoped that the people of Florida 

 will see to it that the Spoonbill is absolutely 

 protected for the next twenty years, with the 

 same intelligent interest and humane reason 

 that has saved the manatee down to 1903. 



