320 ON THE IBIS. 



which I shall mention farther on, that that bird 

 resembles the stork in size and figure. He men- 

 tions his having been informed that white and 

 black ones occurred in abundance on the edges of 

 the Nile ; but it is evident from his very expres- 

 sions, that he did not believe it had been seen 

 there *. 



Shaw says of the ibis,f that it is at the present 

 day excessively rare, and that he has never seen 

 it. His Emseesy, or ox-bird, which Gmelin 

 very improperly refers to the Tantalus Ibis, is of 

 the size of the curlew, with the body white, and 

 the beak and feet red. It frequents the mea- 

 dows, where it follows the cattle ; its flesh is not 

 well tasted, and corrupts quickly. It is easy to 

 see that this is not the Tantalus, and still less the 

 Ibis of the ancients. 



Hasselquist was not acquainted with the white 

 Ibis nor with the black one , his Ardea Ibis is a 

 small heron, which has the beak straight. Lin- 

 naeus had acted very properly in placing it among 

 the herons, in his tenth edition ; but he erred, as 

 I have said, in transporting it afterwards as a sy- 

 nonym to the genus Tantalus. 



* Her. JEgypt. lib. iv. cap. i. t. i. p. 199 of the Leyden 

 Edition. 

 t See the French Translation, vol. ii. p. 167. 



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