PLATE XXV. 



GENUS PLATALEA (Linnceus). 



THE widely distributed family of Spoonbills is represented in Australia by one species — the Plataba 

 regia, which affects a fairly extensive range. 



PLATALEA REGIA (Gould). 



ROYAL SPOONBILL. Genus: Platalea. 



FOR a moment this Spoonbill might be confounded with the Platalea leucorodia of Europe, as in size 

 and the colouring of the plumage little difference exists between the two species, but the lack of 

 feathers over the face and forehead, which are thus rendered bare and black as the bill, make it characteristically 

 distinct. As is the case with the European congener, this bird assumes a fine crest during the pairing and 

 breeding season. 



Found indiscriminately along the northern, eastern, and southern seaboard, it shows a preference 

 for those marshy inlets of the sea that run inland for a considerable distance, or the banks of rivers and 

 lakes where small-shelled molluscs, frogs, insects, and the fry of fish are to be found and easily captured by 

 the bill so wonderfully adapted to this mode of livelihood. 



Scarcely any difference is perceptible between the sexes, both having the graceful ornamental crest 

 which they can erect or drop at will. 



The whole of the plumage is white ; bill, face, legs, and feet, black ; on the crown of the head 

 and over each eye, a triangular mark of orange ; eye, red. [Gould.) 



Total length, 29 inches. 



Habitats : Derby (N.W.A.), Gulf of Carpentaria, Rockingham Bay, Port Denison, Wide Bay 

 District, Richmond and Clarence River Districts, New South Wales, Interior, Victoria and South Australia. 

 [Ramsay.) 



GENUS PLAT I BIS (Bonaparte). 



THE only member of this genus was formerly classified under the Platalea, and is so still by some 

 naturalists, but from the fact that it differed from the typical Platalea in many points, and had many 

 characteristics in common with the White Ibises of India and Africa, Gould considered it was worthy t<> 

 be erected into a new genus — a measure he did not venture to undertake himself, but was glad to adopt 

 Bonaparte's innovation when it was made. 



