speaks of it in his time as an accidental visitor to Scotland ;
adding that he had received it from Orkney. Sir Thomas
Browne, who was contemporary with Merrett and Sibbald,
mentions “ The Platea or Shovelard, which build upon the
tops of high trees. They formerly built in the Hernery at
Claxton and Rudham ; now at Trimley in Suffolk. They
come in March, and are shot by fowlers, not for their meat,
but their handsomeness ; remarkable in their white colour,
copped crown, and spoon, or spatule-like bill.” Willughby
also describes a young Spoonbill taken out of the nest,
perhaps at Trimley. Mr. J. E. Harting has drawn attention
(Zool. 1877, p. 425) to an interesting record of the breeding
of the Spoonbill in Sussex. In a MS. survey of certain
manors taken in 1570, is a memorandum relating to various
parks, including Goodwood, and it is stated that “ in the
woods called the Westwood and the Haslette, Shovelers
and Herons have lately breed [sic], and some Shovelers
breed there this year.” It is clear that this relates to the
present species, and cannot possibly refer to the Shoveller
Duck.
Pennant has recorded the visit of a flock of Spoonbills to
the marshes near Yarmouth in April 1774 ; and since that
date many have from time to time been observed—and, so
far as possible, killed—in Norfolk, Suffolk, and the eastern
counties of England : probably sixty or more. To the south
coast its visits have been less frequent, yet examples have
been obtained in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Dorsetshire,
Somersetshire, Devonshire, rather numerously in Cornwall;
also in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Aberystwith in
Wales, and in Middlesex and other counties along the
lhames valley. In the north the occurrences of the Spoonbill
are far more rare, but Mr. Clarke enumerates nine
instances in Yorkshire.
In Scotland it has been observed in East Lothian ; also
in the Outer Hebrides. In the Oi'kneys, besides the instance
already mentioned by Sibbald, six young birds were shot out
of two flocks, in October 1859, and the species has been
obtained in Shetland.
To Ireland the Spoonbill is a very irregular visitor,
principally to the southern districts; occurrences being on
record in the counties of Cork, Kerry—where three specimens
were obtained so early in the year as the month of
February—Waterford, Wexford, and Dublin; also in the
north, in Antrim, and doubtfully in Donegal.
In Scandinavia the Spoonbill is a rare straggler; but in
Russia it has been obtained as far north as Archangel, and
it breeds in the latter country to the south of 56° N. lat.; also,
sparingly, in some parts of Poland and Central Germany.
In spite of the drainage which almost annually restricts its
breeding area, it still nests in several localities in Holland,
where it usually arrives in April, leaving in September; but
occasionally it has been taken there in the depth of winter.
In France it is now only known on passage, but in the time
of Belon it used to nest on trees in Brittany and Poitou.
It breeds in Spain, and is of general distribution on migration
and in winter throughout the basin of the Mediterranean.
The valley of the Danube and Southern Russia afford it
suitable breeding-haunts ; in Asia Minor, Dickson and Ross
found it nesting freely on the river near Erzeroum in May;
and its summer range stretches across the southern portions
of Siberia to the Amoor, Mongolia, Northern China, and
perhaps to Japan. In India, where it is generally distributed,
Mr. A. 0. Hume states that he is acquainted with at
least fifty of its breeding-places ; and Col. Legge found it
nesting in small numbers in the south-east of Ceylon. It
visits the Azores, Madeira, and the Canaries; and it appears
to be resident throughout North Africa down to the Somali
coast, as Yon Heuglin visited large breeding colonies in
June in the Dahalac Archipelago. In South Africa it is
replaced by Platalea tenuirostris; and representative species
are found in south-eastern Asia and Australia. The Roseate
Spoonbill of America belongs to a different genus (Ajaja),
and presents some important structural variations from the
Old World type.
Up to the end of the year 1882 the Spoonbill nested no
further from our shores than the Horster Meer, between