io8 
AI-LEN’s naiurvlist’s library. 
and tail-feathers ; a large nuchal crest of pointed and droop- 
ing plumes ; on the crown and fore-neck a tinge of tawny or 
cinnamon-buff; bill deep slate-colour, irregularly barred with 
black, and having a yellow patch on the under-part ; feet black ; 
iris crimson. Total length, 38 inches; culmen, 8-i ; wing, 
14-9; tail, 47 ; tarsus, 57. ^ 
Adult Female, — Similar to the male. 
Winter Plumage.— AVhite as in the breeding-plumage, but want- 
ing the crest of drooping plumes. Bare space before the eye 
flesh-colour or greenish-yellow ; eyelid yellow. 
Young Birds.— White all over as in the winter plumage of the 
adults, and equally devoid of crest-plumes ; the primary- 
coverts and quills with black shafts, the outer primaries also 
blackish along the outer webs and at the tips ; bill yellow, or, 
as the spring advances, pale inky-black, mottled with yellow 
at the tip ; the bare skin of the chin yellow ; feet and claws 
black ; iris red. 
Nestling, — Covered with white down, the throat and loral 
region bare as in old birds ; bill )'ellow. 
Range in Great Britain.— To the east and south of England and 
the south of Ireland the Spoon-bill is still an occasional visitor, 
but north of Yorkshire and in Scotland its occurrences have 
been less numerous. A Devonshire specimen from Colonel 
Montaim’s collection is in the British Museum, as well as the 
bill of one which I shot in the Hoy near New Romney several 
years ago when collecting in company with Dr. Gordon Hogg. 
We were shooting some Terns, as the tide swept in, just as 
darkness was coming on, when a great bird hove in siglit which 
I took to be a Gull at the time. In the failing light we could 
not find the place where it dropped, and the tide compelled 
us to retreat. A week later 1 found its body washed up into 
some reeds, and past all preserving. , „ , „ 
In olden times, the Spoon-bill, or “Shoveler ” and “Shove- 
lard ” as it was called, bred in England, not only m Norioik 
-nd’suffolk, but, as Mr. Harting has shown, near Goodwood, 
and at Fulham near London. It has long been extinguished as 
a breeding-species with us. 
Eiu-e outside the British Islands.— The Spoon-bill is everywhere 
