342 GLOSSY IBIS. 



The adult female is perfectly similar to the male in all except size, 

 being very sensibly smaller. 



Under two years of age they resemble the adult, but the head and 

 neck are of a much darker color, the chestnut having nothing vivid, 

 but rather verging upon blackish brown, and all speckled with small 

 dashes of white disposed longitudinally on the margins of the feathers, 

 and disap])oaring gradually as the bird advances in age : the under 

 parts and the thighs are of a blackish gray, more or less verging upon 

 chestnut according to ago, the back acquiring its brilliant colors in the 

 same manner. It is in this state that most authors, Brisson especially, 

 have described their Numenius viridis, which for a long time usurped 

 the privilege of somewhat representing the type of the species. 



The young has these white lines longer and more numerous, and the 

 lowest parts of a darker blackish gray. 



This bird does not appear in its full plumage until the third year, 

 and is so different from the adult as to furnish an excuse for those who 

 in that state have considered it as a distinct species. The bill is brown : 

 the feathers of the head and of the throat are dark brow]iish with a 

 whitish margin, wider in proportion as the bird is younger : the breast, 

 belly, vent, under tail-coverts and thigh-feathers are grayish brown 

 or slate color : the lower portion of the back, wings, and tail of a 

 somewhat golden green, passing into reddish, with but very little gloss 

 in specimens under one year old, and richer as they advance in age. 

 The feet are wholly blackish. 



No bird ranges more widely over the globe than the Glossy Ibis : it 

 has long been known to inhabit Europe, Asia, Oceanica, and Africa, 

 •where it gained its celebrity. It is now proclaimed as American, though 

 we are not able to tell how numerous or extended the species may be on 

 this continent. We can hardly doubt, however, that it is found along 

 almost all the shores of North and South America, though far from 

 common in any of these states. From the fact of this bird having 

 been known to stray occasionally from Europe to far distant Iceland, 

 we may infer that the individuals met with in the United States are 

 merely stragglers from that part of the world, just as the Scolopax ffrisea 

 of the same plate is an American bird well known to push its accidental 

 migrations as far as the old continent. 



Lest the discovery of the Glossy Ibis on the continent of America 

 should give weight to an erroneous supposition of Vieillot, we think pro- 

 per to mention that the Cayenne Ibis of Latham, Tantalus cayanensis, 

 Gmel., represented by Buffon, pi. enl. 820 (Vieillot's own unseen Ibis 

 sylvatica), is by no means this bird, but a real species examined by us, 

 and which must be called Ibis cayanensis. 



Let it come whence it may, the Glossy Ibis is only an occasional 

 visitant of the United States, appearing in small flocks during the 



