a. Ornith. [SOFT a. 29.] Having a soft bill. Also in specific names.

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a. 1705.  Ray, Synop. Avium (1713), 68. In Tenuirostras, Soft Bil’d Birds … and Crassirostras, Hard Bil’d Birds.

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1771.  G. White, Selborne, xlii. Many of our soft-billed summer birds of passage.

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1785.  Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, III. II. 522. Soft-billed Duck … inhabits New Zealand.

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1826.  Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. III. (1863), 97. A soft-billed bird, that requires as much care as a nightingale!

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1871.  Darwin, Desc. Man, II. xvi. (1890), 490. Many of the soft-billed birds are songsters.

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