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Family IBIDID.E. 



Ibis melanocephala (Lath.). The White Ibis. 



Threskiornis melanocephalus (Linn.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 7C8 ; Hume, 

 Hough Draft N. fy E. no. 941. 



The White Ibis breeds, I believe, pretty well throughout India ; 

 but 1 myself have only taken the nest in the central portion of 

 the Doab. About Etavvah, Cavvnpoor, and Mynpooree this species 

 begins to lay as soon as the rains commence, and I have found 

 eggs as early as the 20th June and as late as the 28th August. 

 They breed generally in small companies, often by themselves, and 

 well away from human haunts, but at times in the society of other 

 species and in the outskirts of villages. 



I never found, I think, more than a dozen pairs of this species 

 breeding together, and I have more than once found solitary pairs. 



Large banian /peepul, and tamarind trees are what they prefer 

 to build on, and they construct a moderate-sized stick-nest, 

 perhaps 20 inches to 2 feet in diameter, with a more or less well- 

 marked central depression. 



They lay two, three, and very rarely four eggs. Layard says 

 five or six, but I rather doubt this ; anyhow I have never found 

 more than four eggs, and very seldom this number even, while I 

 have dozens of times found two or three eggs ready to hatch off, 

 or two or three young ones in a nest. 



From JhansiMr. F. E. Blewitt wrote : " On the 1st July 1868, 

 on a large peepul tree, at its very summit, between four forks of a 

 branch I found a nest of the White Ibis containing two eggs. 



" The nest was about 2 feet in diameter, with a hollow in its 

 centre for the eggs. The exterior of the structure was of coarse 

 twigs of the tree itself; the inner part of finer twigs of sorts. 

 Altogether, it was not so neatly made a nest as that of Geronticus 

 papillosus. 



" The two eggs are of a dirty chalky white, but, as far as I can 

 observe, without the rusty blotches alluded to by Layard. The 

 eggs, when I secured them, were within a day of hatching. 



" In length they measured 2-6, and in breadth 1'8." 



Major C. T. Bingham writes : " I found this Ibis breeding in 

 large numbers on the 19th August on a mighty tamarind-tree, on 

 the north bank of a large tank in the centre of the village of 

 Mohar. There must have been some twenty to thirty pairs 

 breeding on this tree, and beside this there were over forty odd 

 nests of the Shell-Ibis. The nests of the latter I counted, as they 

 were easily distinguishable by their larger size ; and on examination 

 I found that whereas the Shell-Ibis had all young more or less 

 fledged, the White Ibises had not yet hatched off. Of the eggs of 



