Il6 WADING BIRDS. 



trees ; but of their manners during the period of reproduction 

 we are still wholly ignorant, and Temminck believes that they 

 retire to breed in the wilds of Asia, though Montague thinks 

 their vernal migrations are directed to the less-inhabited parts 

 of the North, where they find security about the rivers and 

 interior lakes to propagate, and whence they retire as the 

 winter approaches and as their food begins to fail, spreading 

 themselves at this season over the southern parts of Europe 

 and the adjoining continents. According to Oedman, they 

 have been known to breed, for several years in succession, in 

 the isle of Oland, in the Baltic. 



The food of the Ibis is merely insects, worms, river shell- 

 fish, and vegetables, which is Hkewise the real fare of the nearly 

 allied. Sacred Ibis, of the Egyptians (^Ibis religlosa, Cuvier), 

 neither of whom show any predilection for devouring serpents 

 or large reptiles, — for which purpose, in fact, the structure of 

 their long and falciform bills is wholly unfitted. 



From the supposed utility of the Ibis in destroying noxious 

 reptiles, it was held in the greatest veneration by the Egyp- 

 tians; to kill it was forbidden under pain of death; large 

 flocks were kept in temples, and when they died, were 

 embalmed, inurned, and deposited with the mummies in the 

 sacred receptacles of the dead. These bird-pits ^ as they are 

 still called, are scattered over the plains of Saccara, and are 

 filled with the numerous remains of this and the Egyptian 

 species. So highly was it honored that the Ibis became the 

 characteristic hieroglyph of the country, repeated upon all 

 the monuments, obelisks, and national statues. The abun- 

 dance of their remains in the catacombs proves, indeed, the 

 familiarity 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 con- 

 ferred. 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, searching /or their eggs, and 



