GLOSSY IBIS. 333 



occasional visitant of the eastern shores of these states. This fact, 

 which we would be among the first to disbelieve were we to read of it 

 in the eloquent pages of Buffon, is authenticated by the specimen here 

 figured, which moreover is not a solitary instance of the kind. Thus, 

 instead of being limited to a peculiar district of Egypt, as stated by 

 Pliny, Solinus, and others, and reiterated by the host of compilers, this 

 celebrated bird is only limited in its irregular wanderings by the bounda- 

 aries of the globe itself. 



The credit of having added this beautiful species to the Fauna of 

 the United States is due to Mr. Ord, the well known friend and biogra- 

 pher of Wilson, who several years ago gave a good history and minute 

 description of it in the Journal of the Academy of Philadelphia, under 

 the name of Tantalus mexicanus ? His excellent memoir would have 

 been sufficient to establish its identity with the species found so 

 extensively in the old world, even if the specimen itself, carefully pre- 

 served in the Philadelphia Museum, did not place this beyond the 

 possibility of doubt. 



Among the natural productions which their priests had through policy 

 taught the superstitious Egyptians to worship, the Ibis is one of the 

 most celebrated for the adoration it received, though for what reason it 

 is not easy to understand. The dread of noxious animals, formidable 

 on account of their strength or numbers, may induce feelings of respect 

 and veneration, or they may be felt still more naturally for others that 

 render us services by destroying those that are injurious, or ridding man 

 of anything that interferes with his enjoyments, or by ministering to 

 his wants. We can conceive how a sense of gratitude should cause 

 these to be held sacred, in order to insure their multiplication, and that 

 this sentiment should even be carried to adoration. But why grant 

 such honors to the wild, harmless, and apparently useless Ibis ? It is 

 perfectly well proved at this day that the Ibis is as useless as it is 

 inoffensive, and if the Egyptian priests who worshipped the Deity in his 

 creatures declared it pre-eminently sacred ; if while the adoration of 

 other similar divinities was confined to peculiar districts, that of the 

 Ibis was universal over Egypt ; if it was said, that should the gods take 

 mortal forms it would be under that of the Ibis that they would prefer 

 to appear on earth, and so many things of the kind, we can assign no 

 other reason than the fact of their appearing with the periodical rains, 

 coming down from the upper country when the freshening Etherian 

 winds began to blow, when they were driven in search of a better climate 

 by the very rains that produce the inundation of the Nile, doing Egypt 

 such signal benefit. The Ibis, whose appearance accompanied these 

 blessings, would disappear also at the season when the south desert 

 winds from the internal parts of Africa brought desolation in their 

 train, which could be averted only by the periodical return of the 



