IBISES—Family Ibidide 
WHITE IBIS 
184. Guara alba. 25 in, 
Tips of primaries black; plumage, otherwise, entirely 
white; bill, face and legs, orange red or carmine. Young 
with head and neck, and more or less of the body, 
brownish or streaked with brown. White Ibises are 
very abundant in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, 
breeding in immense rookeries in remote swamps, plac- 
ing their frail platforms in bushes over the water or 
sometimes weaving nests out of rushes, attached to up- 
right canes and brake. These rookeries are very untidy 
and offensive to human beings, and millions and millions 
of black flies and mosquitoes will be encountered by any 
who wish to investigate the breeding places of these 
birds. 
Notes.—A loud, harsh croak. 
Nest.—Of twigs in bushes, or: of rushes in the tangle 
and brake of marshes; 3 or 4 whitish eggs, handsomely 
spotted and splashed with brownish. 
Range.—Breeds north to South Carolina and Southern 
Ill. Winters from the Gulf States southward. 
