32 Dr. A. L. Adams on the Birds of Egypt and Nubia. 



of the Blue and White Nile. Heuglin found it on the coast of 

 Abyssinia. No doubt it was imported by the ancient Egyptians ; 

 and^ judging from the numbers which are constantly turning up 

 in the tombs and pits of Sakkara and elsewhere in Egypt, and 

 the accounts of Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, &c., the Ibis must 

 have been very numerous, and, like the Brahmin Bull in India, 

 " did as it choosed." The last-named writer says, " Every 

 street in Alexandria is full of them. In certain respects they are 

 useful, in others troublesome. They are useful, because they 

 pick up all sorts of small animals and the offal thrown out of the 

 butchers' and cooks' shops. They are troublesome, because 

 they devour everything, are dirty, and with difficulty prevented 

 from polluting in every way what is clean and what is not given 

 to them." * The late Mr. Rhind informed me that he found 

 several jars full of white eggs as large as a Mallard's, along 

 with many embalmed bodies of Ibises, at Thebes ; these, with 

 his valuable collection, have since been presented to the Royal 

 Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh. 



Mummied Ibises are usually found alone, but sometimes with 

 other sacred animals ; and although Hermopolis was the patron 

 city of the bird, as Buto of the Kestrel and other Hawks, we find 

 it also among the tombs of Thebes and Memphis. Some au- 

 thorities think both species of Ibis were sacred. The /. falcinellus 

 is, I believe, occasionally seen in Egypt, as it is pretty common 

 in the E. Atlas ■\, and I have shot several in Malta in the begin- 

 ning of May, and seen others. No doubt the White Ibis was 

 imported into Italy, and kept about the temples of Isis J. It 

 was the emblem of Thoth, the scribe or secretary of Osiris, whose 

 duty it was to write down and recount the deeds of the deceased ; 

 in consequence the bird is constantly seen on the ancient monu- 

 ments under various forms. In the gizzards of the mummied 

 specimens unrolled at Thebes I found large pebbles, beads, many 

 shells of Pahidince, but chiefly remains of coleopterous insects, 

 especially of a small black beetle which is common on dung- 

 heaps along the river's bank. All the paintings at Beni Hassan 

 and the Tombs of the Kings represent the /. religiosa. 



* Strabo, lib. xvii. c. 2. \ Tristram. 



X See Bulwor's note tob. i. p. 34 of ' The Last Days of Pompeii.' 



