ON THE IBIS. 



Demaillet * conjectures that the ibis might be 

 the bird peculiar to Egypt, and which was named 

 Pharaoh's Fowl (Chapon de Pharaon), and at 

 Aleppo Saphan-bacha. It devours serpents. 

 There are of them white, and white and black ; 

 and it follows, for more than a hundred leagues, 

 the caravans which go from Cairo to Mecca, for 

 the purpose of feeding upon the carcases of ani- 

 mals which are killed during the journey, while 

 at any other time there is not one seen along this 

 route. But the author does not consider this con- 

 jecture as certain ; he even says, that we must 

 give up understanding the ancients, when they 

 have spoken so as not to be understood. He 

 ends with concluding, that the ancients have 

 perhaps indiscriminately comprehended under the 

 name of Ibis, all birds which rendered to Egypt 

 the service of clearing it of the dangerous reptiles 

 which this climate produces in abundance, such 

 as the vulture, the falcon, the stork, the sparrow- 

 hawk, &c. 



He had reason not to regard his Pharaoh's 

 fowl as the ibis ; for, although its description is 

 very imperfect, and although Buffon fancied he 

 recognised the ibis in it, it is easy to judge, as 

 well as by what Pokocke says of it, that this bird 



* Description de 1'Egypte, part ii, p. 23. 



