. the Antient Egyptians. 6$ 



Befides, this aflertion would be as much contrary to the 

 tantalus ibis as to our curlew ; for the individuals which we 

 pofTefs of that fpecies, have been brought from Senegal. It 

 was from this country that Geoffroy de Villcneuve brought 

 the one in the Mufseum of Natural Hiftory : it is even much 

 rarer in Egypt than our curlew, fince, according to Perrault, 

 no one had ever laid that he faw it there, or had received it 

 from that country. 



Since we are now acquainted with this bird, if we examine 

 the works of the antients, and antient monuments, we (hall 

 find every difficulty vanifh, and that all their teftimonie.s 

 agree with the beft of all, which is, the body of the bird itfelf 

 preferved and embalmed. " The moft common kind of the 

 ibis," fays Herodotus *, " has the head and neck bare, the 

 plumage white, except the head, the neck, the tips of the 

 wings, and the rump, which are black. The bill and feet 

 refemble thofe of the other kind of ibis :" and he had faid of 

 the latter, " they are all black, have feet like the crane, and 

 a hooked bill." There are many modern travellers who do 

 not give fuch good defcriptions of the birds they obferve as 

 that which Herodotus has given of the ibis. How could 

 naturalifts apply this defcription to a bird having no part 

 naked but the face, which is red ? To a bird which has the 

 rump white, and not black ? This laft character, however, 

 was efiential to the ibis. Plutarch fays, in his Treatife De 

 IJide et Ofiride, that the maimer in which the white was 

 mixed with the black in the plumage of this bird, made it 

 appear as if marked with a crefcent; and, indeed, the union 

 of the black of the rump with that of the two tips of the 

 wings, which forms on the white a large femicircular in- 

 dentation, makes the white have a refemblance to that figure. 

 It is more difficult to explain what he means when he fays 

 that the feet of the ibis form with its bill an equilateral triangle. 

 The paintings of Herculaneum \, however, place the mat- 

 ter beyond all doubt. Some of thefe paintings, which repre- 

 fent Egyptian ceremonies, exhibit feveral of thefe birds 



* Euterpe. 



+ Plates, No. 138 and 140 of the edition of David ; and Vol. IT. 

 p. 355, No. *9 ; and p. 321, No. 60, of the oiigjnal editjofi. 



Vol. VIII. K walking 



