PLATALEIDAE—GLOSSY IBIS.
189
yards of it, as it was feeding with its head under water. He called to it to make
it rise, and shot it when thirty or forty yards distant. A second shot from a
barrel loaded, like the first, with No. 2 shot was necessary, and even then it
flew on to within fifty yards of the river, where it dropped dead with its wings
stretched out on the ground. This was in the parish of Stoke Nayland. Although
Col. Rowley wanted the bird Mr. Mortimer kept it and had it very nicely mounted
by Ambrose, of Colchester. Mr. Mortimer says he shot it in the month of May,
but this is clearly an error of memory. He also says another specimen was
reported as having been seen about the same time, but he does not believe in it
(Fitch).
Family PLATALEID.E.
Spoonbill : Platalea leucorodia.
Once a resident, breeding in various counties, including Norfolk,
Sussex, Middlesex, but now for a long time only a rare straggler
chiefly when on migration in spring and autumn. That it formerly
bred also in Essex is more than probable, although there is, I believe,
no actual record of its so doing.
Sheppard and Whitear say (9. 42) " it has been shot on the River Stour." Mr,
Kerry says (40. i. 52) one was shot on Oct. 20th, 1876, on the mud-flats of the
Stour by a wild-fowler named Porter, who consigned it to the spit (Chelmsford
Chronicle, Nov. 2). Mr. Hope writes : " I have seen them fly by. Two which
did so were eventually shot in the month of May, near Bawdsey in Suffolk ; they
were found to contain eggs and were bought by Mr. Robert Hillen of Woodbridge.'*
This is an interesting fact, as it indicates a still-surviving inclination to breed in
this country. One was shot at Mersea in 1863 by Mr. Geo. Mason (Pettitt). A
sternum and furculum in the collection of the late Dr. Bree, now in the possession
of Mr. Harwood, bear the following label: " Shot at Harwich, June, 1877. Two
were shot out of a flock of nine." They were preserved by Ambrose (32a). One
was seen in Aug., 1888, on the mud-flats between Harwich and Walton-on-the-
Naze (Kerry). At the end of Dec, 1889, three were shot out of a flock of
seven, by one of Mr. Patmore's dredger-men at Burnham (Fitch). I saw one of
these at Maldon on Jan. 4th last.
Glossy Ibis : Plegadis falcinellus.
A rare straggler to the British Isles. The only one recorded to
have been met with in Essex was shot by Mr. J. F. T. Wiseman
when snipe-shooting on Oct. 15th, 1872, and is now in his posses-
sion. It rose from the old decoy pond on one of Mr. Wiseman's
farms on the South Hall Marshes, Paglesham, and was preserved by
Travis (35. 440). It is an immature bird.
[ Flamingo ; Phoenicopterus roseus.
The grounds on which some writers have admitted this bird to the
British List seem to me, on the whole, too slight. There is one Essex
record. Yarrel] mentions one seen on our coast in 1873 (37. iv. 245) and
afterwards shot in the Isle of Sheppey, on Aug. 16th. It seems in every
way probable that this was a specimen known to have escaped from the
Zoological Gardens on July 16th in the same year.]