BITTERNS IBISES 147 



add Port St. John, Pondoland. C. G. Davies, C.M.K., 

 favoured us with the loan of a talented water-colour 

 painting made by him of a specimen procured at that 

 place. Fitzsimons of the Port Elizabeth Museum has 

 recently informed us of the receipt, in August, of a fine 

 example from Hankey, a village not far from Uitenhage. 



BITTERNS. 



The Bitterns (genus Ardetta) number three species, 

 of skulking habits, which are in consequence but little 

 known, and are seldom seen by the ordinary individual. 



IBISES. 



The Sacred Ibis (Ibis cethiopica) is pure white, except- 

 ing the head and neck, which are black and devoid of 

 feathers ; the wings are steel-green and metallic-purple. 



This bird ranges throughout the African Continent, 

 being found on most of the inland waters in South Africa, 

 many resorting to the coast islands to breed in Spring. 



Its food consists of crabs, mollusca, worms, &c. It 

 constructs a platform of rushes or seaweeds amongst 

 the rocks. Eoberts found a colony of these birds breed- 

 ing on a " pan " near Balmoral Station in the Transvaal on 

 December 11, 1904. The nests were built on the rushes 

 about 6 inches above the surface of the water, and con- 

 tained each from two to three eggs ; these were of a 

 dirty white colour, some marked with light brown round 

 the obtuse ends, but the majority were hardly marked at 

 all. Besides eggs, young in all stages of growth were 

 found. 



The Hadadah Ibis (Theristicus hagedash) is olive-green 

 above, the wing-coverts being metallic ; the wing-quills 



