ON THE IBIS. 311 



not occur in other individuals that are in other 

 respects entirely similar. 



This first individual came from the collection 

 of the Stadtholder, and its native country was 

 unknown. The late M. Desmoulins, assistant 

 naturalist to the Museum, who had seen two 

 others, asserted that they came from Senegal; 

 one of them must even have been brought by M. 

 Geoffrpy de Villeneuve : but we shall see, as we 

 proceed, that Bruce * found this species in Abys- 

 sinia, where it was named dbou-Hannes (Father 

 John) ; and that M. Savigny saw it in abundance 

 in Lower Egypt, where it was called Abou- 

 Mengel (Father of the Sickle). It is probable 

 that the moderns will give no credit to the asser- 

 tion of the ancients, that the ibis never left 

 Egypt without perishing f . This assertion would, 

 besides, be as contrary to the Tantalus Ibis as to 

 our common Curlew; for the individuals which 

 we have in Europe came from Senegal. It was 

 from thence that M. Geoffroy de Villeneuve had 

 brought the individual in the Museum of Natural 

 History. It is even much rarer in Egypt than 

 our curlew ; for, since Perrault, nobody mentions 

 having seen it there, or having received it from 

 that country. An individual without the reddish 

 tint, but in other respects perfectly similar to the 

 first, was brought home by M. de Labillardierc, 



* Bruce, loc. cit. ; and Savigny, (C Mem. sur I'lbis," p. 12* 

 t Julian, lib. ii. cap. 38 



