TANTALID^. 297 



349. Geronticus calvus (Bodd.). Bald Ibis. 



Courly a tete nue, Buffon's Planches Enl. pi. 867, vol. viii. p. 381. 

 Geronticus calvus, Layard's Cat. No. 606. 



Gray's Hand-list of Birds, No. 10218. 



[Mr. Andersson refers to this species in his notes as found on 

 the Orange River ; but he does not give any details respecting it, 

 and I did not meet with it in any of his collections. ED.] 



350. Ibis SBthiopica (Lath.). Sacred Ibis. 



Ibis religiosa, Savigny's Hist. Nat. de 1'Ibis, pi. 4. 



Hemprich & Ehrenberg, Sym. Phys. pi. 17. 



Bree's Birds of Europe, vol. iv. p. 45, plate (bird), 



p. 49, plate, fig. 1 (egg). 

 Geronticus cethiopicus, Layard's Cat. No. 320. 

 Ibis cethiopica, Gurney, in Ibis, 1868, p. 259. 



Finsch & Hartlaub's Vogel Ost-Afrika's, p. 733. 



Sclater, in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 382, fig 2 (head). 



I have never observed this species in Damara or Great 

 Namaqua Land ; but it is not uncommon in the Lake- 

 regions, and is extremely abundant in Ondonga, espe- 

 cially during the rainy season, when it is comparatively 

 tame, though wild at other times. It is sometimes met 

 with in flocks of from fifty to a hundred individuals ; it 

 is a heavy bird, and its flesh is good eating. 



The iris is dark brown, but with an outer ring which 

 is reddish in adult and whitish in young birds ; the bill 

 is very dark brown ; the bare skin of the head and neck 

 is black, but with a pink spot under the eye in adult 

 birds, which is almost livid in younger specimens. 



A naked space under the wings is bright brick-red in 

 adult birds, but paler in those which are immature ; the 

 legs are black. 



