114 



IBISES Family Ibididae 



WHITE IBIS 

 184. Guara, alba. 25 in. 



Tips of primaries black; plumage, otherwise, entirely 

 white; bill, face and legs, orange red or carmine. Young 

 with head and neck, and more or less of the body, 

 brownish or streaked with brown. White Ibises are 

 very abundant in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, 

 breeding in immense rookeries in remote swamps, plac- 

 ing their frail platforms in bushes over the water or 

 sometimes weaving nests out of rushes, attached to up- 

 right canes and brake. These rookeries are very untidy 

 and offensive to human beings, and millions and millions 

 of black flies and mosquitoes will be encountered by any 

 who w r ish to investigate the breeding places of these 

 birds. 



Notes. A loud, harsh croak. 



Nest. : 0f twigs in bushes, or of rushes in the tangle 

 and brake of marshes; 3 or 4 whitish eggs, handsomely 

 spotted and splashed with brownish. 



Range. Breeds north to South Carolina and Southern 

 111. Winters from the Gulf States southwau!. 



