Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/47

Rh taking place between them I have never seen noticed before. Perhaps after all it may have lain still, because like Mr. Bury's bird, }t preferred the chance of maltreatment from man to a renewal of the fight in the air. — H.T. Frere ; Aylsham, Nov. 28th, 1845.

The Spoonbill in Andalucia. — One day last August during a paddle down the Guadalquivir, a river of great charms to the Ornithologist, we came upon a Spoonbill, busily engaged in fishing as it waded in the shallow water under the bank ; its method was to pass its beak sideways through the water, keeping it open till something palatable came within its grasp ; but the action by which it 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. The spoonbill, it appears " snitters with its neb" (I.F.D.) when it is ploughing in soft sand or mud (Zool. 227), but I did not perceive that in the mode adopted by my birds the beak was ever closed until just as it was drawn out of the water, which was not done frequently ; and I think the rapidity with which it was passed through the water would make "snittering" useless, if not impossible. The above-mentioned bird kept before us in short flights for a great distance down the river, till at length we overtook a small flock of the same species which it joined ; these were all fishing in the same manner, and so busy were they, that they would not rise till we were just opposite to them, and they began again the instant they alighted ; the state of the tide was probably that which best suited their operations. Their appearance when thus occupied was so striking as to call the atten- tion of all the people on board, all Spaniards. In flying, the neck as well as the legs are stretched out, and this with the comparative straightness of the wings and their quicker flapping, gives the spoonbill, when in the air, an appearance very different to that of the heron tribe. The same day I saw numbers of curlews and many different sizes of sandpipers, also various gulls, and terns, several kinds of ducks, and one flock of geese, besides birds I could not make out. The common heron was abundant along the banks, and very tame, large hawks like marsh harriers were sailing over the plains. On my voyage up, I had seen one huge black fellow seated in the distance in solitary grandeur, and to my great satisfaction I clearly made out with my glass that he was a vulture ; it was within two or three hours of Seville, and near the vast pastures where the far-famed bulls were rearing for the fight : near there I was informed they were not uncommonly to be seen. On my return, of course I kept a good look out, and great was the excitement with which I saw four or five of these birds rise from the ground, their necks stretched out, and their long rounded wings flapping slowly, until they began to sail in majestic circles, when I watched them for nearly a quarter of an hour without observing a single motion of the wings. Some time afterwards, as we were approaching San Lucar, another got up on the bank almost close to the boat. Their flight is not unlike that of the harriers. I supposed them to be the young of the Egyptian Vulture. I believe I afterwards saw a flock of mature birds in the Bay of Tangier, but they were at some distance. The great bustard is a bird I had always longed to see in its native wilds, a bird whose name now only reminds one of good old times in English natural history ; and this same day my eyes were delighted with the sight of several small herds at a very little distance off; their bodies appeared longer as they were feeding than I should have thought they would do, four or five that were