Birds. 1213 



taking place between them I have never seen noticed before. Perhaps after all it may 

 have lain still, because like Mr. Bury's bird, it preferred the chance of maltreatment 

 from man to a renewal of the fight in the air. — H. T. Frere ; Aylsham, Nov. 

 28th, 1845. 



The Spoonbill in Andalucia. — One day last August during a paddle down the 

 Guadalquivir, a river of great charms to the Ornithologist, we came upon a Spoonbill, 

 busily engaged in fishing as it waded in the shallow water under the bank ; its method 

 was to pass its beak sideways through the water, keeping it open till something palatable 

 came within its grasp ; but the action by which it effected this was most singular, for 

 instead of turning only its head and neck, it turned its whole body from left to right 

 and from right to left, like the balance wheel of a watch, its neck stretched out, and 

 its beak immersed perpendicularly to about half its depth ; this semicircular action was 

 kept up with great vigour and at a tolerably quick march. The spoonbill, it appears 

 " snitters with its neb'' (I. F. D.) when it is ploughing in soft sand or mud (Zool. 227), 

 but I did not perceive that in the mode adopted by my birds the beak was ever closed 

 until just as it was drawn out of the water, which was not done frequently ; and I 

 think the rapidity with which it was passed through the water would make " snittering'' 

 useless, if not impossible. The above-mentioned bird kept before us in short flights for 

 a great distance down the river, till at length we overtook a small flock of the same 

 species which it joined ; these were all fishing in the same manner, and so busy were 

 they, that they would not rise till we were just opposite to them, and they began again 

 the instant they alighted ; the state of the tide was probably that which best suited their 

 operations. Their appearance when thus occupied was so striking as to call the atten- 

 tion of all the people on board, all Spaniards. In flying, the neck as well as the legs 

 are stretched out, and this with the comparative straightness of the wings and their 

 quicker flapping, gives the spoonbill, when in the air, an appearance very different to 

 that of the heron tribe. The same day I saw numbers of curlews and many different 

 sizes of sandpipers, also various gulls, and terns, several kinds of ducks, and one flock 

 of geese, besides birds I could not make out. The common heron was abundant along 

 the banks, and very tame, large hawks like marsh harriers were sailing over the plains. 

 On my voyage up, I had seen one huge black fellow seated in the distance in solitary 

 grandeur, and to my great satisfaction I clearly made out with my glass that he was a 

 vulture ; it was within two or three hours of Seville, and near the vast pastures where 

 the far-famed bulls were rearing for the fight : near there I was informed they were not 

 uncommonly to be seen. On my return, of course I kept a good look out, and great 

 was the excitement with which I saw four or five of these birds rise from the ground, 

 their necks stretched out, and their long rounded wings flapping slowly, until they 

 began to sail in majestic circles, when I watched them for nearly a quarter of an hour 

 without observing a single motion of the wings. Some time afterwards, as we were 

 approaching San Lucar, another got up on the bank almost close to the boat. Their 

 flight is not unlike that of the harriers. I supposed them to be the young of 

 the Egyptian Vulture. I believe I afterwards saw a flock of mature birds in the Bay 

 of Tangier, but they were at some distance. The great bustard is a bird I had always 

 longed to see in its native wilds, a bird whose name now only reminds one of good old 

 times in English natural history ; and this same day my. eyes were delighted with the 

 sight of several small herds at a very little distance off; their bodies appeared longer 

 as they were feeding than I should have thought they would do, four or five that were 



