54 
THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
of grass, etc., are always floating about the muddy water when a herd has been feeding. Their 
cry is almost indistinguishable from the gaggling of geese, and they fly in the same catenarian 
formations.” 
The Spoonbills and Ibises also belong to the Stork Tribe. The former are remarkable 
chiefly for the strange spoon-shaped bill : one species, a few hundred years ago, nested in 
England. This remarkable beak is associated with a peculiar method of feeding, well described 
by the late Mr. Wolley. During the operation, he says, “ the beak was passed sideways 
through the water, and kept open till something palatable came within its grasp ; but the 
action by which the bird effected this was most singular; for instead of turning only its 
head and neck, it turned its whole body from left to right and from right to left, like 
the balance-wheel of a watch ; its neck stretched out and its beak immersed perpendicularly 
to about half its depth : this semicircular action was kept up with great vigour and at 
a tolerably quick march.” 
Photo by F. Dando^ F.Z.S. 
Photo by bf'. P, Dando^ P.Z.S. 
SPOONBILL 
SACRED IBIS 
So called on account of its spoon-shaped bill 
Sacred to the ancient Egyptians, it is known to the Ahyssinians to-day 
as “ Father John " 
A graphic description by Mr. Alfred Crowley of a visit to the breeding haunts of the 
spoonbill, about fifteen miles from Amsterdam, in 1884, is well worth reproducing here : “ Taking 
a small boat in tow, we were punted across the open water, over which were flying numbers 
of sand-martins, swifts, common and black terns, and black-headed gulls, the reeds being full 
of coots, moorhens, sedge- and reed-warblers, etc., and in the distance we saw, rising above 
the reeds occasionally, a small spoonbill or purple heron. On nearing a large mass of reeds, 
one of the boatmen struck the side of the punt with the pole, when up rose some fifty 
spoonbills and eight or ten purple herons; and as we came closer to the reeds there were soon 
hovering over our heads, within easy shot, some 200 of the former, and fifty or sixty of the 
latter. Strange to say, not a note or sound escaped from the spoonbills, and only a few 
croaks from the herons. On reaching the reeds, we moored our punt, and two of the men, 
wading in the mud, took us in the small boat about fifty yards through the reeds, where 
we found ourselves surrounded by spoonbills’ nests. They were placed on the mud among 
the reeds, built about i foot or 18 inches high and 2 feet in diameter at the bottom, 
tapering to i foot at the top, where there was a slight depression, in which lay four eggs, 
or in most cases four young birds, many ready to leave the nest, and several ran off as we 
