Tin: >Atl!KD U!IS. 493 



ibis, wliiuh tights against the serpents. 15ut the other ibis, whicli is inoic of a domestic 

 bird (for there are two kinds), has the liead and all tire ncclc bar.- of feath?v.-i ; it is of a 

 wliite colour, except the head, neck, and extremities of the wings and tail, all which 

 parts ai'o very black. As to its legs and beak, it resembles tlu- other kind of ibis." 

 According to Herodotus, the black ibis devoured the winged serpents which j'early 

 attempted to make their enlry into Egypt from Arabia; but tltese, it is scarcely necessary 

 to adil, are merely fabulous reptiles. 



Strabo, who was som.e time in Egypt, ^ivcs the following account : — " The ibis is the 

 tamest bird of all : in form and size it is like the stork. But there are two varieties of 

 colour, one of which is that of the stork, and the other is all black. Every street in 

 Al?xandria is filled with them, partly to the benefit of the citizens, and partly not. The 

 bird is useful so far, as it de\"ours all kinds of \-ermin, with the garbage of the shambles 

 and the refuse of the eating-houses." Here Strabo does not distinguish between the two 

 birds, except in colour, and he describes both species as living on garbage. It is 

 most probable that he confounded two birds, tlie ibis and the stork. 



Our engraving represents the Sacred Ibis. Although well-preserved munimies of this 

 bird are to be met with in abundance, they appear, if not to have escaped the observation 

 of naturalists, at all events to have been examined without much penetration ; and even 

 IJlumenbach, the celebrated physiologist of Gernuiny, who examined the bones of the 

 true ibis in a mummy in London, co^isidcred them as belonging to the Tantalus ibis — a 

 bird as large as a stork, and with a similar kind of beak — thus falling into the universal 

 error. The individual to whom the merit of breaking through this popular error is due 

 is the traveller Bruce, w'ho used his own eyes, and exercised his own judgment. He at once 

 recogni-sed the true ibis as one which at the gresent day abounds on the banks of the Nile, 

 and is known there by the name of Abou-Hannes, or Father John. This bird, he tells us, 

 appeared to him the same "as that which the mummy-pitchers contained ;" while the 

 Tantalus ibis of Linna3us, or white ibis of Buffon, was there unknown, or extremely rare, 

 so that he never even sav- it. The various sculptured figures of the sacred ibis, which are 

 still preserved ujDon the relies of antiquity, Egyptian, Greek, and lloman, are suiRcient 

 to confirm his opinion, independent of the actual relics of the bird in question. 



At a subsequent period, the illustrious Cuvier, suspecting the accuracy of the prevailing 

 theories entertained bj' the scientific, instituted a series of investigations which led to a 

 similar conclusion. Speaking of two ibis mmnmies taken from the pits of Saccara, he 

 says : " On carefully exposing them, we perceived that the bones of the embalmed bird 

 were much smaller than those of the Tantalus ibis of naturalists ; that they did not 

 much exceed those of the curlew in size ; that its beak resembled that of the latter, being 

 only a Kttle shorter in proportion to its thickness, and not at all that of the Tantalus ; 

 and lastly, that its plumage was white, with the quills marked with black, as the 

 ancients have described it." . . . . " We found, after some inquiries, that the mmnmies 

 of the ibis which had been opened before by different naturalists were similar to ours." 



Birffbn, who examined several, and even noticed the character of the different parts, was 

 blindly led away by the popidar opinion. iVnd yet the paintings of Egyptian ceremonies 

 at Herculaneum, in which several of these birds are drawn walking in the courts of 

 temples ; the mosaic of Palestine, which presents the ibis perched upon buildings ; various 

 medals and bronze figures, all of which are accurate representations — were known ; so 

 that, as is too often the case_ in matters of the highest moment, as well as in those 

 relating to science or art, the eyes and the understanding seem to have been 

 wilfully blinded. One cause of this universal error, however, arose from the supposition 

 that a bird, described as a destroyer of serpents, and which, according to the information 

 received by Herodotus, once saved Egvpt from the invasion of a host of " winged 

 serpents," must be a bird of consideraltle size, and armed with a large and powerful beak. 



