■q6o 



HERONS. 



strengthened by the fact that Cuvier detected the scales and bones of snakes 

 within a mummied corpse of an ibis ; recent specimens, however, seldom 

 contain anything but moUusks and insects. Some species of ibis feed entirely 

 on fishes and aquatic reptiles, of which they destroy an enormous quantity, 

 in fact, more than they eat ; for if they have been killing fish 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. 



Fig. i8i.— The Egyi-tian Ieis -{Geronticus ^TLthiopkus) 



As soon as they have discovered a place abounding in fish, they dance, as it 

 were, all througli it until the water becomes thick with the mud stirred froni 

 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 satiated. 



The Straw-necked Ibis {Gcyonticus spnn'collis) is very conspicuously 

 coloured, and is at once recognizable by the long straw-like feathers that 

 depend in front of its neck. "This beautiful ibis," says Mr. Gould, "has 

 never been met with out of Australia, over the whole of which immense coun- 

 try it is probably distributed, but it is more abundant in certain localities at 

 one season than another; its presence, in fact, seems to depend upon whether 

 the season be or be not favourable to the increase of the animals upon which 

 the vast hordes of these birds subsist. After tlie severe drought in 1S39, they 

 were met Avith in such numbers upon the Liverpool Plains, that to compute 

 the nuinber in a single flock was impossible. They were also very numerous 



