(ROSEATE SPOONBILL.)
+Platalea ajaja+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 511; _Scl. et Salv.
P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 145; _iid. Nomencl._ p. 127; _Hudson, P. Z.
S._ 1876, p. 15 (Buenos Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 190
(Buenos Ayres); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1880, p. 156 (Buenos Ayres);
_Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 272 (Entrerios, Bahia Blanca). +Ajaja
rosea+, _Baird, Brew., et Ridgw. Water-B. N. A._ i. p. 102.
_Description._--Head bare; neck, back, and breast white; tail
orange-buff, with the shafts deep pink and inner webs stained with
pink; rest of plumage pale rose-pink; lesser wing-coverts and upper
and lower tail-coverts intense carmine; neck with a tuft of twisted
plumes, light carmine; sides of breast pale creamy buff; bill
yellowish grey; head greenish, space round the eye and gular sac
orange; feet pale pink: whole length 30·0 inches, wing 15·0, tail
5·0. _Female_ similar. _Young_ with the head completely feathered.
_Hab._ North and South America.
The Roseate Spoonbill is found in both Americas and ranges south to the
Straits of Magellan, but in Patagonia it is, I think, rare, for on the
Rio Negro I did not meet with it. On the pampas it is abundant, and I
have been told that it breeds in the marshes there, but I have never
been able to find a nest. It is usually seen in small flocks of from
half a dozen to twenty individuals, which all feed near together, wading
up to their knees and sweeping their long flat beaks from side to side
as they advance. An English acquaintance of mine kept one of these birds
as a pet on his estancia for seven years. It was very docile, and would
spend the day roaming about the grounds, associating with the poultry,
but invariably presented itself in the dining-room at meal-time, where
it would take its station at one end of the table, and dexterously catch
in its beak any morsel thrown to it.
I believe that more than one species of Spoonbill inhabits South
America, and that the common Spoonbill of the pampas is a distinct
species from the well-known Ajaja. Some remarks of mine on this subject
were printed in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London'
about nine years ago; but I find that I am alone amongst ornithologists
in this belief; I can, therefore, only repeat here what I have said
before, and leave the question for time to decide.
The general belief is that the pale-plumaged birds, with feathered heads
and black eyes (the Roseate Spoonbill having crimson eyes), and without
the bright wing-spots, the tuft on the breast, horny excrescences on the
beak, and other marks, are only immature birds. Now, for one bird with
all these characteristic marks of the true _Platalea ajaja_, which has
a yellow tail, we meet on the pampas with not less than two to three
hundred examples of the pale-plumaged bird without any traces of such
marks and with a rose-coloured tail; and the disparity in number between
mature and immature birds of one species could not well be so great as
that. I have shot one immature specimen of the true Ajaja--so immature
that it seemed not long out of the nest; but the head was bare of
feathers, and it had the knobs on the upper mandible, only they were so
soft that they could be indented with the nail of the finger. Azara also
mentions an immature bird which he obtained, but he does not say that
the head was feathered; and even this negative evidence goes a great
way, since it would have been very unlike him to see a Spoonbill with a
feathered head and otherwise unlike _Ajaja rosea_, and not describe it
as a distinct species.
There are also anatomical differences between the two birds; the
pale-plumaged species having an ordinary trachea, while _A. rosea_ has
a very curiously-formed trachea, unlike that of any other bird, which
has been described by Garrod as follows:--
"The trachea is simple, straight, of uniform calibre, and peculiarly
short, extending only two thirds down the length of the neck, where the
uncomplicated syrinx is situated and the bifurcation of the bronchi
occurs. The usual pair of muscles, one on each side, runs to this
syrinx from above, and ceases there. The bronchi are fusiformly dilated
at their commencement, where the rings which encircle them are not
complete, a membrane taking their place in that portion of each tube
which is contiguous to its opposite neighbour. Each bronchus, lower
down, is composed of complete cartilaginous rings."
[Illustration: Trachea of _Ajaja rosea_.--_a._ Trachea. _b._ Syrinx.
_d._ Oesophagus. _e._ Cervical muscles. _r.b._ Right bronchus.
_l.b._ Left bronchus.
(From P. Z. S. 1875, p. 300.)]
The woodcut of this curious structure is here reproduced by the kind
permission of the Zoological Society. It is much to be wished that
some one living in the Argentine Republic would devote himself to the
further investigation of the history of this interesting bird, and
settle the question whether there is more than one species of Argentine
Spoonbill.
To conclude, I may mention that the pet bird my friend kept was of the
pale-plumaged species, and never lost the feathers from its head, nor
did it acquire any of the characteristic marks of _P. ajaja_.
Fam. XXXVIII. PHOENICOPTERIDÆ, or FLAMINGOES.
The very peculiar and isolated type of Flamingo is found in both the
Old and New Worlds, and is, no doubt, of great antiquity. In the
Neotropical Region three species of Flamingo are now known to occur,
one of which is well known in the Argentine Provinces. Of the other
two (_Phoenicopterus andinus_ and _P. jamesi_[6]), which inhabit the
Andes of Chili and Bolivia, one has also been ascertained to occur
within the northern frontiers of the Argentine Republic. Both these
last-named species belong to the three-toed section of the genus
(_Phoenicoparra_). In _P. ignipalliatus_ the hind toe is present.
[6] _Cf._ Sclater, P. Z. S. 1886, p. 399.