178 



HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



goes at present by the same name ; a bird of 

 the stork kind, of about the size of a curlew, 

 all over black, with a bill very thick in the 

 beginning, but ending in a point, for the better 

 seizing its prey, which is caterpillars, locusts, 

 and serpents. But however useful the mo- 

 dern ibis may be in ridding Egypt, where it 

 resides, of the vermin and venomous ani- 

 mals that infest it; yet it is much doubted 

 whether this be the same ibis to which 

 the ancients paid their adoration. Mail- 

 let, the French consul at Cairo, observes, 

 that it is very hard to determine what bird 

 the ancient ibis certainly was, because there 

 are cranes, storks, hawks, kites, and falcons, 

 that are all equally enemies to serpents, and 

 devour a vast number. He farther adds, that 

 in the month of May, when the winds begin 

 to blow from the internal parts of Africa, 

 there are several sorts of birds that come down 

 from Upper Egypt, from whence they are 

 driven by the rains, in search of a better 

 habitation, and that it is then they do this 

 country such signal services. Nor does the 

 figure of this bird, hieroglyphically repre- 

 sented on their pillars, mark it sufficiently to 

 make the distinction. Besides, the modern 

 ibis is not peculiar to Egypt, as it is to be 

 seen but at certain seasons of the year ; 

 whereas we are informed by Pliny, that this 

 bird was seen no where else. It is thought, 

 therefore, that the true ibis is a bird of the 

 vulture kind, described above, and called by 

 some the capon of Pharaoh, which not only is 

 a devourer of serpents, but will follow the 

 caravans that go to Mecca, to feed upon the 

 offal of the animals that are killed on the 

 journey. 1 



1 Perrault first introduced the erroneous notion that 

 the ibis of antiquity was a species of Tantalus, in which 

 he was followed implicitly by naturalists throughout the 

 whole of the last century. Brisson, Buflbn, Linnaeus, 

 and Latham, all united to give it currency ; and the 

 Tantalus ibis of the two latter authors was universally 

 regarded as the sacred bird. Our adventurous country- 

 man Bruce was the first to throw a doubt upon the 

 authenticity of this determination, and to point out the 

 identity between the figures represented on the ancient 

 monuments, the mummies preserved in the Egyptian 

 tombs, and a living bird common on the banks of the 

 Nile and known to the Arabs by the name of Abou 

 Hannes. But it was not until after the return of the 

 French expedition from Egypt that the question was 

 definitely settled by a careful anatomical comparison of 

 the ancient mummies and recent specimens then brought 

 home by Geoflroy-Saint-Hilaire and Savigny. From 

 the examination of these materials, M. Cuvier was 

 enabled to verify Bruce's assertion, and to restore to 

 science a bird which after having formed for centuries 

 the object of a nation's adoration, had fallen into obli- 

 vion, and was wholly unknown to modern naturalists. 

 At the same time he pointed out those distinctive 

 characters on which M. Lacepcde founded the genus 

 ibis, formally established by M. Cuvier himself in the 

 first edition of his Ilegne Animal. 



The ibis genus is characterized by a long and slender 



CHAP. IV. 



OF THE BALEARIC AND OTHER FOREIGN 

 CRANES. 



HAVING ended the last chapter with doubts 

 concerning the ibis, we shall begin this with 



bill, nearly square at its base, where it is of less breadth 

 than the head, almost straight for about one half of its 

 length, and having the remaining part gradually curved 

 downwards, blunt at its point and without any notch ; 

 nostrils situated near the base of the bill at the com- 

 mencement of a groove which is continued along each 

 side of its upper surface as far as to its point; the head, 

 and sometimes the neck, devoid of feathers to an extent 

 varying in the different races; wings of moderate 

 length; tarsi slender; and toes webbed at the base, tlie 

 hinder one placed somewhat above the level of the 

 others but being of sufficient length to rest upon tlie 

 earth. In many of these characters we observe a con- 

 siderable deviation from those of the storks and other 

 typical examples of the family with which the ibis is 

 associated, and a marked approach to the curlews. 

 From the natural habits and organization of the ibis, 

 confirmed by analogy, and further corroborated by the 

 testimony of the modern Egyptians, it does not appear 

 that it feeds upon reptiles. We must, then, look for 

 other reasons than the destruction of serpents, for the 

 veneration paid to the ibis by the ancient Egyptians, 

 who admitted it even into their temples, and prohibited 

 the killing of it, under pain of death. In a country, 

 where the people, very ignorant, were governed only 

 by superstitious idea?, it was natural that fictions should 

 have been imagined, to express with energy the happy 

 influences of that phenomenon which every year at- 

 tracts the ibis into Egypt, and retains it there. Its 

 constant presence at the epoch of that inundation, which 

 annually triumphs over all the sources of decay, and 

 assures the fertility of the soil, must have appeared to 

 the priests and the persons at the head of government 

 admirably calculated to make a lively impression on the 

 minds of the people, to lead them to suppose super- 

 natural and secret relations between the movements of 

 the Nile and the sojourn of these inoffensive birds, and 

 to consider the latter as the cause of effects exclusively 

 owing to the overflow of the river. Besides the white 

 and black ibis, another ibis, entirely black, was equally 

 reverenced in Egypt, and embalmed in a similar man- 

 ner. This one is more elegant and slender than the 

 other in its external form, and its internal organs are 

 also more contracted. M. Savigny has opened about 

 twenty individuals of this species, and has found nothing 

 in their very narrow gizzard, but small fluviatile shells, 

 with some debris of vegetables, which probably enveloped 

 the shells at the moment in which they were swallowed, 

 and cannot be considered as properly constituting any 

 part of the aliment of these birds. The two species 

 have a powerful and elevated flight. In this action 

 the neck and feet are extended horizontally, and from 

 time to time, the birds, all together, send forth deep and 

 hoarse cries, more powerful in the white ibis than in the 

 black. When these birds alight on lands which they 

 have newly discovered, they remain crowded against 

 each other, and may be seen for entire hours, occupied 

 in searching the mud with their bills, advancing slowly, 

 step by step, and never springing with rapidity like the 

 curlews. The ibis does not nestle in Egypt. 



The Scarlet Ibis (see Plate XIX. fig. 21.) is a native 

 of America. These birds live almost always in flocks, 

 and tlie old ones most frequently form distinct and sepa- 



