allow one bird to sit, and the other to stand beside i t : We
found four eggs in each. The Spoonbill was also found by
the Russian Naturalists on the banks of the rivers, and in
the marshes of the country between the Black and the Caspian
Seas. Colonel Sykes brought specimen! from India,
which although three or four inches longer, wëre otherwise
identical with the European bird. These specimens were
obtained in the Dukhun, one hundred miles from the sea,
and at an elevation of two thousand feet.
These birds build in some .countries on' high trees,; in
default of trees, they make their nests among reeds or rushes
in the marshes, or near the lakes to whicjr they resort. The
materials have been already noticed inrthe floating nests seen
by Messrs.' Diqksön and Ross. The eggs are four, two
inches five lines iong, by one inch eight lines broad, white,
spotted with pale reddish brown. The birds feed . on small
reptiles, small fishes, mollusca, aquatic insects, shrimps* sand-
hoppers, &c. many of which they find when .feeding a t ) pools
on the seashore. Their flesh, is dark in colour,-but it? is said
to be of good flavour, and without any £shy taste. They are
quiet and inoffensive in captivity, and, in common with the
various species to which they are allied, will feed, ©n any sort
of offal,
In the adult male bird the beak „ is black, except the
rounded part near thé point, where it;, is yellow; the naked
skin under the tongue and on -the throat is also yellow; the
irides red ; the whole of the plumage pure white, • except a
band - of feathers a t the bottom off the neck in front, which is
pf a buff colour, and this tint extends upwards on each side
in a narrow stripe to the to p ; the feathers of the occiput are
elongated, forming a conspicuous plume; the legs, toes, and
claws black; the toes connected by a considerable expanse of
membrane which is concave at the margin between the^tbes.
The whole length of the bird, from the point of the beak
to the end of the tail, about thirty-two inches ; of which, the
beak in an old male will measure near nine inches; from the
carpal joint to the end of the wing fourteen inches and a
half; the first quill feather not quite so long as the fourth ;
the' ‘second and third equal in length, rather longer than the
fourth, and the longest in the wing.
The females are not ‘lö^large at the same age as males,
and Êavë a smaller;'-occipital crest; but they are not otherwise
dissimilar in plumage.
In ybung birds the beak is not, so large, it is softer in its
textiife,' more flexible and of~ a lighter* colour; the naked
parts about,the head" paler; the irides asht^Olour; the shafts
and the ends of tth e ‘ quill feathers are black, and there is no
indicationfdf: the elongated ofeèipital feathers, which at mature
age are borne .by both^e^®y?
T h e1 Spoonbill possesses a peculiarity1 of internal structure
much tool interesting to be passed over. This bird is one of
'tht^yeryl few which has been' found td^pb#e|s* no true muscles
of the organ of voice, and no, modulation of a single tone appears
dbitbé possessed by the bird. The figure inserted on
the next; pageti§? a representation of part of the inside of this
•bird, with the figure of 8 like convolutions of its singular
windpipe in the natural situation in front-of the lungs; the insertion
of the bronchise into the lobe of the lungs on each side
|i|fshown, but if compared with'the ^representations of the' organs
©f tpiëé'in birds at pages 7 ^ -7 4 and 76 of the present
volume, it will bé' seen that no ’ particular ossification at the
junction of thjp bronchise with the bottom of the tube of the
trachea exists, nor any muscle||by which variations in the
length of the trachea óf the bronchise can be effected. In
a young SpoonbHl^taken from the' nest, and examined by
Willughby in’*-reference to this particular'-structure, which is
said to have Ében first noticed by Aldrovandus, this peculiarity
was -not .found, and I have been told of another in