3$6 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



emblem so affecting of candour and of virginity # , 

 forms the most beautiful ornament of the shores of 

 the Nile, were the ibis of the ancients, birds on 

 which antiquity conferred the highest honours. 

 Nothing that could be urged against it would in- 

 duce them to alter their opinion. A contemptuous 

 censure fell on those travellers who had preceded 

 them, and who had not sufficient observation to 

 see the ibis in Egypt, whilst they had encountered 

 a multitude of them the first time they set foot 

 there. They congratulated themselves on being 

 in a situation to ascertain that the ibises were the 

 most common birds in Egypt ; they also deter- 

 mined to make an ample collection of them. 

 Whenever they descried a heron, they bawled as 

 loud as they could, to direct the Egyptian sailors 

 to manoeuvre so as to bring them within gun- shot 

 of their mark. These latter grew impatient, and 

 swore at so many delays and so much labour, of 

 which they could not conceive the importance. 

 Nearly two hundred shots were fired upon the 

 herons, but, fortunately for them, the sportsmen 

 were as bad marksmen, as they were ignorant of 

 natural history ; and two or three only of these 



* It is a beautiful idea of Hasselquitz (Travels to the Le- 

 vant) to name the white heron, virgin heron, ardea virgo. If 

 every denomination presented so much truth, and so many 

 charms as this does, nomenclature would cease to be a science 

 so arid. 



birds 



