THE ZooLocist—SEPTEMBER, 1876. 53069 
“A long white line, dimly seen at first in the distance, issues out of the 
gray-green woods. It is a troop of wood ibises, leaving their heated covert 
for what seems the still less endurable glare of day, yet reckoning well, for 
they have before enjoyed the cooler currents of the upper air, unheated by 
reflection from the parched and shrinking sands. They come nearer, rising 
higher as they come, till they are directly overhead in the bright blue. 
Flapping heavily until they had cleared all obstacles, then mounting faster, 
with strong, regular beats of their broad wings, now they sail in circles 
with wide-spread, motionless pinions, supported as if by magic. A score or 
more cross each other's paths in interminable spirals, their snowy bodies 
tipped at the wing-points with jetty black, clear cut against the sky; they 
become specks in the air, and finally pass from view.” 
Audubon, quoted by the Doctor, gives a good description of the 
manner in which these ibises feed :— 
“The wood ibis,” he says, “ feeds entirely upon fish and aquatic reptiles, 
of which it destroys an enormous quantity, in fact more than it eats; for 
if they have been killing fish for half-an hour, and gorged themselves, they 
suffer the rest to lie on the water untouched, to become food for alligators, 
crows and vultures. To procure its food, the wood ibis walks through 
shallow, muddy lakes, or bayous, in numbers. As soon as they have 
discovered a place abounding in fish, they dance, as it were, all through it, 
until the water becomes thick with the mud stirred from the bottom with 
their feet. The fishes, on rising to the surface, are instautly struck by the 
beak of the ibises, and on being deprived of life they turn over, and so 
remain. In the course of ten or fifteen minutes, hundreds of fishes, frogs, 
young alligators, and water-snakes, cover the surface, and the birds greedily 
swallow them until they are completely gorged, after which they walk to 
the nearest margins, place themselves in long rows, with their breasts all 
turned towards the sun, in the manner of pelicans and vultures, and thus 
remain for an hour or so.” 
It is a common fallacy to discredit any variations in the habits 
of animals or birds familiar to us. When such are reported we are 
sometimes apt to dispute the fact. Were any one bold enough to 
record in a popular journal that he had seen a snipe sitting on a 
rail, a woodcock perched upon a tree, or a sky lark singing upon 
the ground, the experience of many people would be so outraged 
that they would at once take pen in hand to send in a con- 
tradiction of these statements. Because they had never themselves 
seen such things (and all that we have instanced are by no means 
SECOND SERIES—VOL, XI. Vx 
