IBIS EREMITA 183 



larger than that of Abyssinian specimens and alludes to the possibility of 

 subspecific separation being necessary. Should an examination of further 

 material render this advisable, a difficulty would arise as regards the 

 nomenclature, for it is not known to which form the bird from Switzerland 

 belonged, to which the name ercmita was originally given. 



Although there appears to be no recent record of the occurrence 

 of the Ked-cheeked Ibis in Tunisia, I include the species among the 

 birds of the Eegency, as an example of it from that country (an 

 immature specimen collected by Mr. L. Fraser) is preserved in the 

 British Museum collection and Malherbe states that he had received 

 a specimen from the Province of Bone. 



Loche states that the species is to be met with in the neighbour- 

 hood of Boghar in Algeria, where it is sedentary (Expl. Scient. Alg. 

 Ois. ii, p. 154) and three specimens collected by him in Algeria are 

 preserved in the Milan Museum under the numbers 17,771 — 17,773. 

 Canon Tristram also writes concerning its occurrence in Algeria as 

 follows : " This extraordinary bird I never saw during my second 

 sojourn in Algeria ; but on my first visit to the Sahara in the spring 

 of 1856 I obtained two specimens in the rocky ridges beyond 

 Bouguizoun on the road to El-Aghouat. Unlike the rest of its family, 

 it resorts only to the most arid and desolate mountain ranges, where 

 it consorts with the Eaven and the Falcon. Its food, as I ascertained, 

 consists of lizards and serpents, but it is doubtless ignorant of the 

 flavour of tailless batrachians. It breeds in inaccessible holes of the 

 precipices, which I was unable to reach, though I saw the bird going 

 in and out. Captain Dastugue, of the French ' Genie,' showed me 

 a coarse egg of a deep blue colour, almost the size of that of the 

 Common Heron, which he believed to be the egg of this bird. It does 

 not appear to be gregarious. The bright red legs and feet of a freshly 

 killed specimen are peculiarly coarse and rough in the scales, adapted 

 evidently for rocks and sand rather than mud and water. The bare 

 portion of the head and neck is, as well as the bill, of a brilliant 

 crimson." {Ihis, 1860, p. 78.) 



In Marocco the Eed-cheeked Ibis has recently been met with by 

 Dr. Hartert and Mr. E. G. B. Meade-Waldo, who both appear to 

 have found the species abundant in the neighbourhood of Mazagan, 

 on the west coast of the Empire, the former meeting with it at 

 Cape Blanco, and the latter on the south side of the Wad Moorbey, 

 otherwise known as the Oum-Ebiah or Oum-er-Eebia. Mr. Meade- 



