456 GRALLATORES. 



fishes and aquatic reptiles, of which they destroy an 

 enormous quantity, in fact, more tlian they eat ; for if 

 they have been killing fisli for half an hour, and have 

 gorged themselves, they suffer the rest to lie on the water 

 untouched, when it becomes food for alligators, crows, 

 and vultures. To procure food of this description, they 

 walk through shallow muddy lakes in numbers together. 

 As soon as they have discovered a place abounding in 

 fish, they dance, as it were, all through it until the water 

 becomes thick with the mud stirred from the bottom 

 by their feet. The fishes, on rising to the surface, are 

 instantly struck by the beaks of the Ibises, and being 

 deprived of life, they turn over, and so remain. In the 

 course of ten or fifteen minutes hundreds of fishes, frogs, 

 young alligators, and water-snakes, cover the surface, and 

 the birds greedily swallow them until they are completely 

 gorged. 



