from the Colony of Natal. 275 



as quite to startle even a person accustomed to such things. 

 Beetles and insects form their food almost entirely. They are 

 also fond of hunting in old mealy-gardens, and on the tops of 

 high hills and amongst stones and rocks, where they find food 

 in abundance. Their notes are loud and harsh, and may easily 

 be heard at the distance of a mile or more in still weather. At the 

 earliest break of day they leave their roosting-places, generally 

 in high trees overhanging water, and return again as the sun 

 is setting, or a little after, when they are easily shot, as the 

 same birds always return to the same tree every evening; and 

 the sportsman being hidden beneath, he easily loads his game- 

 bag with them as they straggle home from their day's labour. 

 These fine birds are now becoming very scarce, in consequence 

 of their habits being so regular and so well known. They are 

 very good eating when properly cooked. Their nest is built on 

 a bough overhanging the water; it consists of coarse sticks 

 lined with a little fine grass; the concavity is just sufficient 

 to prevent the eggs, four in number, from rolling out; year 

 after year the same pair, if undisturbed, build in the same tree. 



Thrbsciornis ^thiopicus (Lath.). Sacred Ibis. (No. 117, 

 Ibis, 1860, p. 219.) 



Female. Iris blackish brown, with an outer ring of dark 

 crimson ; bill, tarsi and feet, and bare skin of the neck black. 



These Ibises are only here during the winter months, and then 

 they are moulting, so that it is very difficult to get a specimen in 

 anything like decent plumage ; besides that, they are extremely 

 shy and wary, tough to kill, and frequent such localities as 

 almost invariably to fall in the mud, which ruins the delicate 

 whiteness of the plumage ; they are gregarious, and may often 

 be seen feeding with the Egrets and Herons on the shrimps, 

 small fish, and crabs which abound in the little streamlets and 

 mud at low water at the head of the bay. The White Herons 

 and Sacred Ibis are absent during the summer; no doubt they 

 then resort to their breeding-haunts. 



Mycteria senegalensis (Shaw). Saddle-bill Jabiru. (No. 

 173, Ibis, 1862, p. 34.) 



[In a former paper above quoted, Mr. Ayres describes a 



u2 



