IBISES. 



159 



Nile as the ibis, being generally pointed out to travelers by dragomans, etc., as the 

 real Ibis religiosa" This is due to the fact that the " sacred ibis," to quote Mr. D. 

 G. Elliot's words, " is no longer met with upon the Nile north of Khartum, and I do not 

 know of any authentic account of its having been seen in Egypt in modern times;" and 

 Dr. A. L. Adams finds " no reason for considering the sacred ibis to have been a 

 native at any time of either Egypt or Nubia." A few straggling individuals to 

 lower Egypt have, however, been recently reported. The latter author continues as 

 follows : " No doubt it was imported by the ancient Egyptians ; and judging from 

 the numbers which are constantly turning up in the tombs and pits of Sakkara and 



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FIG. 77. Ibis cethiopica, sacred ibis. 



elsewhere in Egypt, and the accounts of Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, etc., the ibis 

 must have been very numerous, and, like the brahmin bull in India, 'did as it choosed.' 

 The last-named writer says, ' every street in Alexandria is full of them. In certain 

 respects they are useful, in others troublesome. They are useful because they pick 

 up all sorts of small animals, and the offal thrown out of the butchers' and cooks 1 

 shops. They are troublesome because they devour everything, are dirty, and with 

 difficulty prevented from polluting in every way what is clean, and what is not given 

 to them.' The late Mr. Rhind informed me that he found several jars of white eggs, 

 as large as a mallard's, along with many embalmed bodies of ibises, at Thebes. 

 Mummied ibises are usually found alone, but sometimes with the sacred animals; and 



