Herons, Ralts, Etc. 221 
most remarkable of all our birds of this class. Its 
common name accurately describes and readily dis- 
tinguishes the bird from the herons or ibises. It is 
roseate, not a uniform red like the Scarlet Ibis, and 
the bill is flattened and rounded at the end. The 
time was, and not long ago, that the spoon-bills 
were moderately abundant in Florida and along the 
seaboard of the Gulf States. Now they are rare. 
Chamberlain says “the plume-hunters have almost 
exterminated them there” (in Florida). 
Spoon-bills are nocturnal in habit ; act generally as 
the herons; are gregarious and shy, posting a sentinel 
when feeding. 
Including the above, there are some twenty of 
these long-legged and long-necked birds, and their 
habits are very much alike wherever we find them. 
Some are migratory, and yet are not particularly 
sensitive to a low temperature, as individual birds 
winter as far north as the Middle States. 
The Scarlet Ibis is now scarcely a bird of the 
United States, but the White Ibis remains, and is a 
splendid bird. It is strictly a Southern species, that 
wanders irregularly northward along the Atlantic 
coast, even as far as New Jersey, and farther inland 
up the Mississippi Valley. Nuttall quotes Bartram to 
the effect that the ibises “ fly in large flocks or squad- 
rons, evening and morning, to and from their feeding- 
places or roosts, and are usually called Spanish Cur- 
lews. They subsist principally on crayfish, whose 
cells they probe, and with their strong pinching bills 
drag them out.” 
Nuttall adds, “Sometimes, according to Bartram, 
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