BAY, OR GLOSSY IBIS. 91 



So highly was it honored, that the Ibis became the charac- 

 teristic hieroglyphic of the country, repeated upon all their 

 monuments, obelisks, and national statues. The abundance 

 of their remains in the catacombs, proves, indeed, the famil- 

 iarity which the species had contracted with the indulgent 

 inhabitants of its favorite country; and, like the Stork of 

 Europe, venerated for its supposed piety, it gained credit, in 

 the prejudices of the ignorant, for benefits which it never 

 conferred. Diodorus Siculus, however, only adds, what 

 appears by no means improbable, that (impelled by hunger 

 on their first arrival,) night and day, the Ibis, walking by 

 the verge of the water, watches reptiles, sear citing for their 

 eggs, and destroying all the beetles and grasshoppers which 

 it finds. Thus accustomed to favor and immunity, (like 

 our own Vulture scavengers,) in Egypt these birds advanc- 

 ed without fear into the midst of the cities. Strabo re- 

 lates, that they filled the streets and lanes of Alexandria, 

 to such a degree, as to become troublesome and importunate; 

 and Hasselquist remarks, that in Lower Egypt, as soon as 

 the Nile becomes freed from its inundations, they arrive in 

 such numbers, as to be seen morning and evening, frequent- 

 ing the gardens, and covering whole palm trees with their 

 flocks. The Egyptian Ibis is likewise said to construct its 

 nest familiarly in the clustering fronds of the date palm, 

 where it lays 4 eggs, and sits, according to the fanciful cal- 

 culation of ^lian, as many days as the star Isis takes to 

 perform the revolution of its phases. 



To enumerate the various fictions and falsehoods with 

 which the ancients have chosen to embellish the history of 

 the Ibis, would be as vain and useless to the naturalist, as 

 to the sober historian. Even Josephus has the credulity to 

 relate, that, when Moses made war on the Ethiopians, he 

 carried, in cages of papyrus, a great number of the Ibis, to 

 oppose them to the serpents ! Fables of this kind are now 



