646 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



dates accompanying them are for July, August, September and Octo- 

 ber, the earliest being July 30 (1887) and the latest October 30 of the 

 same year. Dr. Wheaton mentions one being taken in spring ten miles 

 west of Cleveland. (Birds of Ohio, p. 497.) The first account of the oc- 

 currence of these birds. in the State is given by Dr. Haymond (Proc. 

 Phila. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1856, p. 295), in which he says: "The first day 

 of August, 1855, a large flock of these birds made their appearance in 

 this neighborhood. They remained along the river and the White- 

 water Canal for about a month or six weeks. A son of one of my 

 neighbors broke the wing of one of them and caught it. After keeping 

 it three or four weeks, feeding it upon fish, he' gave it to me. I kept it 

 until the first of November, when it fell a victim, as many another bi- 

 ped has done, to its appetite. Some mackerel had been placed to soak 

 upon a table in the back yard, one of which he stole and ate, and upon 

 the evening of the next day, died in convulsions." Dr. Haymond also 

 refers to this in Indiana Geological Eeport, 1869, p. 229. 



I was very much surprised in the winter of 1889-90, to have brought 

 to me by my friend, Mr. Edw. Hughes, the skull of a Wood Ibis, the 

 name of which he desired to know. He said it was the skull of a bird 

 which had been killed about three miles south of Brookville, and was 

 preserved as a curiosity in the family of Mrs. St. John. At my request 

 he inquired the date and facts of its capture. He was informed that it 

 was one of a number which were seen along the river in the summer 

 of 1855 or 1856. This was perhaps one of the same flock of which I 

 have before spoken. Dr. F. Stein informs me that he saw a pair of 

 Wood Ibises at "Little Chain/' about ten miles west of Mt. Vernon, 

 about 1874or 1875. One was shot by a Mr. Harmon at "Maple Swamp," 

 in Carroll County, July 30, 1887. Mr. C. E. Newlin informs me that 

 the specimen is in the possession of Dr. 0. A; J. Morrison, of Middle 

 Fork, Ind. Mr. Ridgway has seen it in Knox and Gibson counties sev- 

 eral times, and, concerning its occurrence there, remarks: "The Wood 

 Ibis occurs numerously every summer along the Wabash, and while it 

 may not breed, I think that it does." In a letter to Prof. Evermann, 

 he says: "I remember, years ago, seeing these birds occasionally, soar- 

 ing in circles, high in air; above the Wabash River, at Mt. Carmel, the 

 season, I think, being midsummer. Again, either in summer or early 

 fall, I started a large flock which had been perching on the branches 

 of a large dead sycamore tree overhanging the bank of White River 

 Pond, just below the mouth of the W T hite River, but did not get any 

 specimens. The species, to my certain knowledge, occurs more or less 

 plentifully, at times, at the Cypress Pond, in the southwestern corner 

 of Knox County (Indiana), but, owing to the circumstances that I 



