New Publications. 389 
one of locusts, another of Scolopendre, the third of scorpions. He has 
been informed that other individuals of the Ibis, caught alive and do- 
mesticated by the officers, fed only on grasshoppers or locusts, which they 
chase, and which they will even take from the hand, if presented to them. 
M. Guyon asks whether these locusts, so common in Egypt, may not 
be the winged serpents of which Herodotus speaks, This appears to him 
the more probable, because Herodotus, who gives the nomenclature of 
all the animals of Egypt, from the elephant down to the fly, makes no 
mention of locusts, which have always been the scourge of that country. 
M. Guyon adds, however, that M. Lefevre informs him that he has seen 
an Ibis seize and swallow lizards, as well as pretty large pieces of an 
adder which he amused himself by throwing to it. This may be readily 
conceived when we think of the manner in which the animal proceeds to 
swallow its prey. Having seized it with the extremity of the beak, the 
bird, by a rapid movement, throws it into the air, and soon takes it into 
its throat. If it is a living body which it seizes, it is always the head 
which enters first into the beak. M. Guyon has likewise learned from 
other persons, that the Ibis is very fond of the barbel, a fish which 
is found abundantly in the rivers of Algeria ; that it swallows food cooked 
or raw, bread softened in water, boiled substances, &c. ; that it easily 
becomes familiar with man, in so much that at Orleansville one of these 
birds, which lived there at liberty for six months, came every day at 
meal time to the tent of a captain, to receive the food he was accustomed 
to give it.* 
NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 
1. Elements of the Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrate Animals 
designed especially for the Use of Students. By Rudolph Wagner, 
M.D., Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the Uni- 
versity of Gottingen, &c. Edited from the German by Alfred Tulk, 
M.R.C.S., London. 8vo, pp. 264. Longmans and Co., 1845. This 
valuable work will form a good Manual for Students of Comparative Anatomy. 
2. Contributions towards a Fauna and Flora of the County of Cork. 
By J. D. Humphreys (the Zoology), and Dr Power (the Botany). 8vo, 
pp- 160. J. Van Voorst, London ; and George Purcell, Cork. 1845. 
3. Elements of Physics. By G. F. Peschel, Principal of the Military 
College at Dresden, &c. Translated from the German by E, West. II- 
lustrated with diagrams and woodcuts. Part 1, Ponderable Bodies. 
12mo, pp. 307. Longmans and Co., London, 1845, Not yet finished. 
4. A Discourse delivered upon the opening of the New Hall of the 
New York Lyceum of Natural History. By John W. Francis, M.D., 
8vo, pp. 93. New York. 
5. The Chemistry of Vegetable and Animal Physiology. By Dr G. 
J. Mulder, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Utrecht. Tyran- 
* L’Institut, No. 540, p. 152. 
