BIRDS 231 



is that a great many people saw the bird, because it was exposed 

 in the flesh in the shop of a man named Green, then a butcher 

 in Windermere. 



Order HERODIONES. Fam. PLATALEIDM. 



SPOONBILL. 



Platalea leucorodia (L.). 



The earliest Spoonbill authenticated in Lakeland is a specimen 

 preserved in the Newcastle Museum. This, Mr. Hancock 

 assured me, was killed on Dalton Sands in 1833. The next 

 supposed occurrence in point of time is that of a bird which 

 frequented the Solway in the winter 1840-41, and was recorded 

 as a Great White Heron by the newspapers. James Irwin (the 

 man who furnished the first intelligence of the bird to the local 

 press) wrote the following letter to T. C. Heysham, dated 

 Bowness, 8th January 1841 : 'With reference to the "Heron," 

 I beg to inform you that it was perfectly white in every part of 

 its body and wings ; on looking at the bird through a spying 

 glass of large dimensions, I ascertained that the throat and the 

 long feathers on the rump were of a dusky white, almost 

 approaching to a light fawn colour. I must however add that 

 my observations with the glass were not as satisfactory as I 

 could have wished, in consequence of the dazzling rays of the 

 sun. The bill and legs were a light ash colour, and its size 

 about that of the common Heron. It would measure about 

 4 feet 10 from tip to tip of the wings, and weigh from 3 to 3 J 

 lbs. The first time I observed it was about the middle of 

 November, it was fishing in some shallow water near the new 

 wall about 200 yards from the wooden jetty. Its second visit 

 to the same place was about a week subsequent to its first appear- 

 ance.' In the autumn of 1859 a couple of Spoonbills made 

 their appearance in the north of Cumberland within a few days 

 of one another. George Bowman shot the earliest of the two 

 on Scaleby meadows upon the 7th of November. Sam Watson 

 stuffed this bird. A little later in the same year a Spoonbill 

 was shot on the river Irthing near the village of Irthington. 



