316 ON THE IBIS. 



And yet this latter character was essential to 

 the ibis. Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride) says, 

 that the manner in which the white was cut by 

 the black in the plumage of this bird, presented 

 the form of a lunar crescent. It is, in fact, by 

 the union of the black of the last quills, with 

 that of the two ends of the wings, that there is 

 formed, in the white, a large semicircular notch, 

 which gives to the white the figure of a crescent. 



It is more difficult to explain what he has 

 intended to say, in averring that the feet of 

 the ibis form an equilateral triangle with its 

 beak. But we can understand the assertion of 

 ^Elian, that when it draws in its head and neck 

 among its feathers, it represents, in some mea- 

 sure, the figure of a heart. * It was on account 

 of this, according to Horus Apollo (c. 35.), the 

 emblem of the human heart. 



From what Herodotus says of the nakedness 

 of the throat, and of the feathers which covered 

 the upper part of the neck, he appears to have 

 had under his eyes a middle aged individual ; but 

 it is not the less certain, that the Egyptians also 

 knew very well the individuals with the neck en- 

 tirely bare. We see such represented from sculp- 

 tures in bronze, in Caylus's Collection of Egyp- 

 tian Antiquities (vol. i. pi. x. no. 4., and vol. v. 



* Mian, lib. v. cap. 29- 



