154 SPOONBILL 
Professor J. Rhys, in Folk-Lore, 1891, p. 284, says that 
‘an octogenarian captain at Peel related to me how he had 
once when a boy heard a Tarroo ushtey (water bull); the 
bellowings of the brute made the ground tremble, but other- 
wise the captain was unable to give me any very intelligible 
description.’ It seems not unlikely that the Bittern was 
the real author of the sounds attributed to this mythical 
creature, supposed to haunt pools and swamps. The same 
authority was informed that between Andreas and the sea 
to the west, before the land was drained, there used to be 
one of these animals. _ 
Now extinct in Britain, except as a casual visitant, the 
Bittern is said to have formerly bred in Ayrshire, perhaps 
in Kirkeudbrightshire, and in Cumberland and Lancashire. 
In the eighteenth century it was ‘common in the Lower 
Ards, Co. Down, but for the last sixty years or so has 
been known in Ireland only as an irregular visitor, in which 
capacity it still occurs all round our sea. 
[For the often-quoted but incorrect record of the 
AMERICAN BITTERN, Botaurus lentiginosus (Montagu), 
see article above on ‘Common Bittern.’] 
[PLATALEA LEUCORODIA, Linn. 
SPOON BILL. 
The late Mr. Jeffcott stated, in 1883, that the year pre- 
vious a Spoonbill had repeatedly been seen on Langness, 
where it had remained for several days. Mr. Kermode was 
also told by Mr. Bailey, of Ramsey (who stated that he was 
well acquainted with the species), that he had seen one at 
Cob-ny-Ronnag, near that town. 
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