Volume Ii Part 21 (2/2)

+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, s.p.a.ce round the eye and gular sac orange; feet pale pink: whole length 300 inches, wing 150, tail 50. _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, a.s.sociating 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, h.o.r.n.y 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 k.n.o.bs 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.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trachea of _Ajaja rosea_.--_a._ Trachea. _b._ Syrinx.

_d._ sophagus. _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. x.x.xVIII. PHNICOPTERIDae, 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 (_Phnicopterus 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 (_Phnicoparra_). In _P. ignipalliatus_ the hind toe is present.

[6] _Cf._ Sclater, P. Z. S. 1886, p. 399.

332. PHNICOPTERUS IGNIPALLIATUS, Geoffr. et d'Orb.

(ARGENTINE FLAMINGO.)

+Phnicopterus ignipalliatus+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 512 (Mendoza, Parana, Rosario, Buenos Ayres); _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 127; _iid, P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 145 (Buenos Ayres); _Scl. P. Z.

S._ 1872, p. 549 (Rio Negro); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1877, p. 41, et 1878, p. 400 (Patagonia); _Gibson, Ibis_, 1880, p. 156 (Buenos Ayres); _Barrows, Auk_, 1884, p. 272 (Pampas).

<script>