326 ON THE IBIS. 



Buto, a narrow gorge, in which a multitude of 

 bones were heaped up, which he was informed 

 were remains of winged serpents, that were seek- 

 ing to penetrate into Egypt in spring, and that 

 the ibises had arrested their passage. But he 

 does not say that he had witnessed their combats, 

 or that he had seen those winged serpents in their 

 entire state. The whole of his testimony, there- 

 fore, reduces itself to this, that he had observed a 

 heap of bones, which may very well have been 

 those of the multitude of reptiles and other ani- 

 mals which the inundation destroyed every year, 

 and whose bodies it would naturally carry to the 

 places where it was stopped, to the borders of the 

 desert, and which must by preference have accu- 

 mulated in a narrow gorge. 



However, it is equally from this idea of the 

 combats of the ibis with serpents, that Cicero 

 gives that bird a horny and strong beak *. Ha- 

 ving never been in Egypt, he imagined that this 

 must have been the case by mere analogy. 



I am aware that Strabo says somewhere, that 

 the ibis resembles the stork in form and size f , 

 and that this author ought to have known it well, 

 since he asserts that in his time the streets and 



* Avis excelsa, cruribus rigidis, corneo proceroque ros* 

 tvo. Cic, de Nat. Deor. lib. i. 

 t Strabo, lib. xvii. 



