PLATE CCXXXIV. 



White Spoonrill. BriL ZooL Jpp. t. 9,--Ard. ZooL 11. 



p, 441. yJ. — Id. Stip. p, 66. — Lath. Gen. Sj/n. v» 

 p. 13. /• — Fultney Catalogue, DoiJ'et. p. 13. 



A flock of tbefe birds migrated into the marilies near Yarmoutli, in 

 Norfolk, in the month of April, 1774, and upon the authority of this 

 circumftance the fpecies firft obtained a place in the Britifli Fauna. 

 They were obferved by Mr. Jofeph Sparftiall of Yarmouth, who tranf- 

 mitled a minute account of one of the birds to Mr. Pennant, the par- 

 ticulars of which are inferted in the Appendix to his Britiih Zoology. 



Whether this fpecies had been previoufly afcertained as a Britiflx 

 bird feems rather doubtful. Ray informs us only that in his time they 

 bred annually in a wood at Sevenhuys, not remote from Leyden, to 

 which Mr. Pennant adds, that the w ood is now deftroyed ; and that 

 thofe birds,, with feveral others that formerly frequented the country, 

 are at prefent become very rare. Albin give a figure of the bird which 

 he faw in the poflefiTion of Mrs. Legrand, but it is fufficiently plain 

 from the tenor of his obfervations, he confidered it as a foreign bird. 



In a certain grove (fays Albin) at a village, called Sevenhuys, not 

 far from Leyden in Holland, ihey build and breed yearly in great 

 numbers, on the tops of the high trees, where are alfo Herns and 

 Night Ravens," he. When the young ones are almoft fledged ^, thofe 



* This obfervation confirms the conje6ture of Dr. Latham, who imagines the young 

 birds (which are confidered as an article of food) are taken before they can %, *' for 

 Willoughby," he obferves, " talks of their being fhaken out of the neft with a crook 

 fuftcned to the end of a pole," Vide Orn. p. 289,, 



that 



