174 
THE SPOONBILL. 
And further on, in groups against the sky, 
Long lines of pyramids ascend on high. 
By all forsaken, save by beasts of prey, 
And that dark bird, a god in ancient day. 
Whose voice still sounds, as shadowy twilight falls, 
Like a ghost's wail along those lonely walls. 
The White Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia). — A yet 
handsomer bird, as far as colour is concerned, is this species. 
The plumage is chiefly white. It has a silky crest, deli- 
cately tinged with yellow ; and the lower part of the neck, 
with a portion of the breast, are of a pale buff. The bill 
is of a very singular shape, being long, and flattened at the 
end like a spoon, or rather a pair of spoons; hence its 
common name. This bird appears to be extensively dis- 
tributed over the warmer parts of Europe, being especially 
abundant in Holland, where it remains only during the 
summer. It haunts, like the Ibis, the margins of rivers 
and estuaries, feeding on small fishes, mollusca, worms, and 
aquatic insects, for which it searches among the mud with 
its shovel-bill. Temminck says that it nestles in trees, or 
bushes, or among rushes, near the margins of the sea or 
large lakes, seldom going far inland to breed. It lays two 
or three white eggs, marked with faint rust-red spots, 
sparely scattered, or sometimes white altogether. 
A rare visitant in England. Pennant records the appear- 
ance of a large flight which arrived on the marshes near 
Yarmouth in April 1774; and Montagu describes it as 
sometimes seen during the winter on the coast of South 
Devon, from wdience he received two specimens, one in 
1804, and the other in 1807. Yarrell mentions tvv^o speci- 
mens which w^ere shot in Lincolnshire in 1826. 
