N "'i'M:' X X I M vnn.us, Ibis Loci ptdt and Egatht us Billbt rg. 93 



ii ;JI u|), I nit I think Ibis Lacepede will prove to be a synonym of the 

 Tantalus of Cuvier's Tabl. Elem., 1798, or in other words will have 

 for its type the Tantalus ibis, and thus will replace Pseudotantalus 

 Ridgway, and remove Ibis from the family of [bises! This will 

 result as follows: — 



Tantalus ibis will become Ibis ibis, with Pseudotantalus and 

 Egatheus as syn. 



Ibis aethiopica will become Threslciornis aeth. 



The family name of the Ibises will become probably Plegadidae. 



"In Lacepede's Tableaux, 1799, you will find no mention of Nu- 

 menius, bul the 'Courlis' group is called Tantalus, and the'Ibis' 

 is given the new generic name Ibis. In Cuvier's Lecons, 1800, the 



'ibis' is called Tantalus, and the ' courlis ' .Xuiurnius. To settle 

 the question it will he necessary, I think, (oconsiilt the introductory 

 part of Lacepede's 1709 paper (not accessible here) and see if he 

 did not take his vernacular group names from Cuvier's Tabl. Elem., 

 1798, also to consult the ' Didot ' edition of Buffon (Shcrhorn knows 

 all about this work) and sec if either Lacepede or Daudin did not 

 deal further with Ibis there. The Didot edition is not to be had 

 here." 



Such an interesting problem deserved immediate attention and 

 herewith are given the results of my investigations. 



To deal first with Lacepede's Tableau, 1799. The introduction 

 does not give any clue to the origination of Lacepede's divisions; 

 no references to contemporaries arc included. From a comparison 

 of the tables in Cuvier's Lecons, I suggest that Cuvier borrowed 

 from Lacepede, rather than vice versa. The Cuvierian (1800) 

 groups seem to approximate quite closely to the Lacepede (1799) 

 groups and not as closely to the Tabl. Llem. (1798) ones. It 

 seems that Cuvier framed his tables after Lacepede had laid his 

 before the Paris Institute in 1798 (Sherborn, Natural Science, 

 1899, pp. 106 109), where Cuvier would see them. It does not 

 matter much, however, as there is nothing yet known to decide 



either way. 



In the 'Tableau' the diagnosis of Ibis reads "be bee long, fort, 

 tranchant, e1 e'mousse' a son e\t remit e, des places denudes de plumes 



sur la tetc" 



