Spoonbill

[f. SPOON sb. + BILL sb.², after Du. lepelaar (in Kilian lepeler, lepel-gans), f. lepel spoon.]

  1.  Ornith. One or other of various species of birds belonging to the widely distributed genus Platalea, characterized by having a long spatulate or spoon-shaped bill; esp. the common white species, P. leucorodia.

1678.  Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., III. 288. The Spoon-bill. Platea sive Pelecanus.… The Bill is … of the likeness of a Spoon, whence also the Bird it self is called by the Low Dutch, Lepelaer, that is, Spoon-bill.

1681.  Grew, Musæum, I. iv. 66. The Head of the Shovler or Spoonbill.

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VI. 6. The Spoonbill … differs a good deal from the crane, yet approaches this class more than any other.

1828.  Lytton, Pelham, II. iii. What,… that one foot square of mortality, with an aquatic volucrine face, like a spoonbill?

1862.  J. G. Wood, Illustr. Nat. Hist., II. 670. The beak of an adult Spoonbill is about eight inches in length, very much flattened.

c. 1880.  Cassell’s Nat. Hist., IV. 188. Only half a dozen species of Spoonbills are known.

  b.  With distinguishing terms.

1678.  Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., III. 289. Tlauhquechul, or the Mexican Spoon-bill…. It feeds only on living fish. Ibid. The Brasilian Spoon-bill…. In figure … agrees with the European Platea, differing only in colour.

1725.  Sloane, Jamaica, II. 317. Platea incarnata. The American Scarlet-Pelican, or, Spoon-Bill.

1785.  Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, III. I. 13. White Spoonbill, Platalea leucorodia. Ibid., 16. Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea Ajaja. Ibid., V. I. 17. Dwarf Spoon-bill, Platalea pygmea.

c. 1835.  Encycl. Metrop. (1845), XXIII. 409/1. Platalea Tenuirostris,… Slender-beaked Spoonbill.

1836.  Asiatic Researches, I. I. 71. The Pigmy Spoonbill is ash grey above, and white beneath.

1898.  Morris, Austral Eng., 430. The Australian species are—Royal Spoonbill, Platalea regia; Yellow-billed S., P. flavipes.

  c.  pl. The genus Platalea, to which these species belong.

1819.  Stephens, Shaw’s Zool., XI. II. 641. The Spoonbills live in society in the maritime marshes, or near the mouths of great rivers.

1834.  McMurtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 150. The Spoonbills approximate to the storks in the whole of their structure.

1879.  E. P. Wright, Anim. Life, 328. The Spoonbills and Ibises form the family called Plataleidæ.

  2.  A spatulate or spoon-shaped bill.

1802.  Paley, Nat. Theol., xv. In the swan, the web-foot, the spoon-bill, the long neck,… bear all a relation to one another.

  3.  Ichth. (See quots.)

1882.  Imperial Dict., IV. 168/1. Spoon-bill,… a name given to a kind of sturgeon (Polyodon spatula) found in the Ohio, Mississippi, &c.

1892.  J. A. Thomson, Outl. Zool., 430. The paddle-fish or spoon-bill of the Mississippi.

  4.  attrib. and Comb., as spoonbill bonnet, fashion, -like; spoonbill cat, duck, snipe (see quots.).

1881.  Daily News, 10 March, 5/1. When the *spoonbill bonnet was abruptly cast aside for the bonnet no bigger than a cheese plate.

1882.  Jordan & Gilbert, Synopsis Fishes N. Amer., 83. Polyodon spathula, Paddle-fish; *Spoon-bill Cat.

1813.  Montagu, Ornith., Suppl., Scaup-Duck.… Provincial [name]. *Spoon-bill Duck.

1874.  Coues, Birds N. W., 570. Spatula clypeata.… Shoveller; Spoonbill Duck.

1883.  Pall Mall Gaz., Suppl. 2 June. The extraordinarily rare *spoonbill snipe.