WADING BIRDS 



IBISES. Family IBIDID^ 



Ibises are gracefully formed birds having a long 

 curved bill and a bare face. 



184. White Ibis. Guara alba. 



Range. — This is a tropical and sub-tropical 

 species which is found along the Gulf coast, and 

 north to South Carolina, west to Lower California. 



These handsome birds are wholly white, witli 

 the exception of black primaries. The legs and 

 the bare skin of the face is orange red. These 

 birds are very abundant in most marshy localities 







Grayish 



" 



Whit, i 



^S> 



Scarlet [bis 



along the Gulf coast, especially in Florida, where 

 they nest in rookeries of thousands of individuals. 

 Owing to their not having plumes, they have not 

 been persecuted as have the white herons. They 

 build their nests of sticks and grasses, in the 

 mangroves a few feet above the water. In other 

 localitie they build their nests entirely of dead 

 rushes, attaching them to the standing ones a foot or more above the surface 

 of the water. They are quite substantially made and deeply cupped, very dif- 

 ferent from the nests of the Herons. Their eggs are from three to live in num- 

 ber, vary from grayish ash to pale greenish or bluish in color, blotched with 

 light brown. Size 2.25x1.60. The nesting season is during .\la> and June. 

 Data. — Tampa Bay, Pla., June 4, 1895. Three eggs. Nest of sticks and a lew 

 weeds in small bushes on an island. Collector, Fred Doane. 



i 185.] Scarlet [bis. Guara rubr.a. 



Range. Occasionally, bu1 not recently met with in the southern states. 

 Their habitat is tropica] America, thej being especially abundanl along the 

 Orinoco River in Dorthem South America. 



Full plumag id adull • this species are wholly brighl scarlet, excepl for the 

 , which are iii" k. Their m i are built in impenetrable thickets, 

 in lie ,,,■ man rove . the nests being constructed i i k « - tho e <>\ the White [bis. 

 The eg< too, i tilar to tho e of the preceding i ■■ . but both the 



ground color and the markings averai liter. While >tiii common in some 



localities, the pecies is gradually becoming less abundant, chiefly becau 

 the demand for their feathers for use in fly-tying. 



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