THE SPOONBILL, 
551 
Crustacea L t are to be found at low water, but its usual places of resort are rivers and inland 
swamps. It mode of angling is not unlike that of the kingfisher, as the Boat-bill perches 
upon some bi. ich that overhangs the water, and thence pounces upon the prey below. It is 
not a large bm the body being hardly bigger than that of a common duck, and the legs are 
rather short in oportion to the size of the body. 
The adult m e bird has the top of the head decorated with a long and full plume of jetty 
black feathers, pointed and drooping over the back. In the female the elongated feathers are 
wanting. The tuf or plume of the neck and breast is grayish-white. The feathers of the 
back are elongated, I their color is gray with occasionally a wash of rusty red ; there is also 
a patch of the same h but of a deeper tone, upon the middle of the under surface. The tail 
is white and the sides ick. The bill is blackish-brown, and the legs nearly of the same 
color, but not quite so da; k. Specimens of this bird have been kept in captivity, and were 
fed principally upon fish. 
The well-known Spoonbill affords another instance of the endless variety of forms 
assumed by the same organ under different conditions ; both the beak and the windpipe being 
modified in a very remarkable manner. 
The Spoonbill has a very wide range of country, being spread over the greater part of 
Europe and Asia, and inhabiting a portion of Africa. Like the bird to which it is closely 
allied, this species is one of the waders, frequenting the waters, and obtaining a subsistence 
from the fish, reptiles, and smaller aquatic inhabitants, which it captures in the broad, spoon- 
