304 ON THE IBIS. 



lish inches in length, similar to that of the cur- 

 lew, &c. In a word, its description agrees entire- 

 ly with ours. 



Caylus, in his Collection of Antiquities, vol. 

 vi. pi. xl. fig. 1., gives a representation of the 

 mummy of an ibis, the height of which, with its 

 bandages, is only one foot seven inches four lines, 

 although he says expressly that the bird was placed 

 upon its feet with the head straight out, and that 

 it had no part inflected in its embalment. 



Hasselquist, who took a small white and black 

 heron for the ibis, gives, as his principal reason, 

 that the size of this bird, which is that of a crow, 

 corresponds very well with that of the mummies 

 of the ibis *. How, then, could Linnaeus have 

 given the name of ibis to a bird as large as a 

 stork ? How, especially, could he have considered 

 this bird to be the same as the Ardea ibis of Has- 

 selquist, which, besides its smallness, had the beak 

 straight ? And how has this latter error of sy- 

 nonymy been preserved to this very day in the 

 Systema Nature ? 



A short time after this examination, which was 

 made in the presence of M. Fourcroy, M. Olivier 



* Hasselquist, Iter Palestinum, p. 249, Magnitude gal- 

 linte, seu cornicis ; and, p, 250,, vasa quce in sepulchrix i- 

 veniuntur, cum avibus conditis, hujus sunt magmtudlnis. 



