DEscrip- 
TION. 
WHITE SPOONBILL. Cuass II. 
1774*. They inhabit the continent of Europe. 
In Mr. Ray’s time, they bred annually in a wood 
at Sevenhuys, not remote from Leyden: but the 
wood is now destroyed, and these, with several 
other species, which formerly frequented the : 
country, are at present become very rare. 
Mr. Joseph Sparshall of Yarmouth favored 
me with the following very accurate description : 
“¢ The length from the end of the beak to the 
extremity of the middle toe forty inches; breadth 
of the wings, extended, fifty-two inches; bill, 
length of the upper mandible seven inches ; of 
the lower six three-fourths ditto ; breadth of the 
spoon, near the point, two inches; ditto of the 
nether mandible one inch seven-eighths ; breadth 
of both, in the narrowest part, near the middle, 
three-fourths of an inch; a bright orange-color- 
ed spot, about the breadth of a sixpence, just 
above the point of the upper mandible, which is 
a little hooked, or bent downward at its extre- 
mity. At the angles of the bill, on each cheek, 
a spot of a bright orange-color; the skin be- 
tween the sides of the lower mandible, and ex- 
tending about three inches downward on the 
throat or neck, covered with very fine down, 
* The Spoonbill has new and then been met with on the 
coast of Devonshire, by Colonel Montagu, and once on the 
Kentish coast, by Mr. Boys. J. L. 
