AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 119 



THE WHITE^FACED GLOSSY IBIS. 



By Harry H. Dinn. 



HIS is, without doubt, the most beautiful of the swamp birds 

 known to California, if we except the Wood Duck. Feath- 

 ered in liistrous brown, with a mask of snowy white be- 

 ginning at the base of the bill and covering a good por- 

 tion of the face, this long-legged wader needs no further 

 description of mine to differentiate it, even in the eyes of 

 the tyro, from any of the other members of its tribe. In 

 Southern California these Ibises make their appearance in 

 late September or by the middle of October at the latest, coming ap- 

 parently from the south and returning, each band to the haunts it 

 held dear the winter before. Some writers have said that some few 

 pairs of these birds remain to breed, but I have been unable to con- 

 firm this, though they do nest in Texas and along the Rio Grande. 

 I understand, too, from reliable authority that a small number nest in 

 the few marshes to be found in southern Utah. 



In Los Angeles county, whence come these notes, the Ibises seek 

 equally secluded pools as do the Bitterns, which latter birds arrive and 

 depart at about the same time as the Ibises, but do not band together. 

 Flocks of from ten to fifty stately Ibises, their queer curved bills giv- 

 ing them the appearance of gigantic Curlew, may be seen stalking si- 

 lently about some well hidden pool or along the muddy shore of a 

 shallow inlet at low tide. They are not, however, birds of the open as 

 are the limincolae, but partake more of the nature of the true herons, 

 which are all storks and cranes to the average dweller on the lowlands. 

 To the north of the Tehachapi mountains, which form a sort of me- 

 dian line across this state, these birds do not wander, so far as I am 

 aware. The farther south we go the more numerous become the 

 Ibises. They must fly at a great height in the movements to and from 

 their southern breeding places, as they are never seen or heard in the 

 migrations. Formerly, the lower part of Los Angeles county was cov- 

 ered with a dense growth of willow timber. Most of this has been cut 

 away and along with the White-tailed Kites, and several other lowland 

 birds, the limitations of the White-faced Ibises are being narrowed 

 down until doubtless the day is not far distant when Alta, California, 

 will know them no more. One of the most valued treasures in my col- 



