IBISES. ant 
eat | 
conclude that it was soon domesticated, and bred freely, Moreover, like the black- 
headed ibis of India, which usually lays from four to five eggs, we can easily 
suppose that the numbers rapidly increased. On the contrary, when its protectors 
vanished from the land, so did the ibis.” This species now breeds in the Upper 
Nile, in Nubia, and the Sudan, as it does in Abyssinia, and it extends through the 
continent to the Cape, where it is, however, of rare occurrence. It is essentially a 
water-loving species, and, like its Indian cousins, may be met with in small or 
moderate-sized flocks on the margins of rivers or lakes, or in the flooded rice-fields 






























THE SACRED IBIS (4 nat. size). 
where it wanders in search of the molluses, insects, crustaceans, and worms, which 
constitute its chief food. The flesh has a fishy taste, which renders it quite 
uneatable to Europeans. In the lore of Ancient Egypt the ibis was the emblem of 
Thoth, the secretary of Osiris, and was consequently held in the greatest venera- 
tion, as is proved by the numbers of its mummified remains found in the temples. 
At what date it disappeared from Egypt is unknown, but it remained at the 
conquest of the country by the Romans, by whom it was introduced into Italy. 
Among the other genera of the subfamily we may first refer to the warty-headed 
or black ibis (Geronticus papillosus) of India, and the bald-headed ibis (G. calvus) 
of South Africa, as well-known representatives of an Old World genus dis- 
