Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 49 



sissippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico. Rare or casual on the 

 Atlantic coast. 



In Missouri the Trumpeter Swan is a regular, formerly fairly 

 common, now rather rare, transient visitant from the middle of 

 February to the middle of April, chiefly in March. The innum- 

 erable large and small lakes in the flood plains of the Mississippi 

 and Missouri Rivers offer temporary resting places for the passing 

 swans, which wander in small troops and, where not molested, 

 remain sometimes for weeks on favorite feeding grounds. On a 

 small lake on a St. Charles Co. game preserve a party of eight 

 remained in 1895 from March 15 to April 9; and they are known 

 to return to the same lake every spring. In autumn these lakes 

 are usually too shallow and small to suit swans, though they 

 attract geese and ducks, as well as other water birds and waders. 

 As this species is known to have bred in Iowa and Nebraska the 

 swans, which Audubon saw May 4, 1843, on the Missouri River 

 between Leavenworth and St. Joseph may have been on or near 

 their nesting grounds. That swans bred formerly also in north- 

 eastern Missouri is well known to old hunters. Mr. Jasper 

 Blines of Alexandria wrote October 31, 1888, in Forest and Stream 

 vol. 31, p. 343: ^'What has become of the swan? This noble 

 fowl was tolerably plentiful here in former times and even 

 hatched its brood along the densely covered shores of our low- 

 land lakes. But they have bidden us good-bye and have 

 sought climes more genial, and their musical voice is no more 

 heard in our land." 



Order HERODIONES. Herons, Storks, Ibises, etc. 

 Suborder Ibides. Spoonbills and Ibises. 

 Family Ibididae. Ibises. 

 [184. GuARA ALBA (Linn.). White Ibis.] 



Scolopax cdba. Tantalus albus. Ibis alba. Eudocinus albiis. 



Geog. Dist. — South Atlantic and Gulf States to West Indies 

 and northern South America; north to North Carolina, southern 

 Illinois, Great Salt Lake and Lower California, casually to Long 

 Island, Connecticut and South Dakota. 



There are two White Ibises in immature plumage in collections 

 at Quincy, Illinois, one in the Seaman collection in the High 



