ORDER GRALL.T.. 513 



will sufficiently appear by a reference to the characters given 

 in the text. Australasia is the only part of the world in 

 which the ibides are not found. These birds frequent the 

 borders of rivers and lakes ; they are not, as Herodotus and 

 other ancient writers have asserted, the destroyers of serpents 

 and venomous reptiles. Insects, worms, fluviatile, and uni- 

 valve shell-moil usca, and sometimes small fish, constitute their 

 only aliment. The majority of them nestle on large trees, and 

 they rear their young ones in the nest, until the latter are in 

 a state to be enabled to fly. 



It is only since the publication of Bruce''s Travels, that 

 positive notions have been gained respecting the genus to 

 which we should refer the bird which was so venerated by 

 the Ancient Egyptians, and which they used to embalm after 

 its death. The ibis of Perrault and Bujffon has since been 

 recognized for a tantalus ; that of Hasselquist for a heron, 

 perhaps the same as the ox-bird of Shaw ; and that of Maillet, 

 {Pharaoh'' s Chicken, Rachamah of the Arabs,) for a vulture, 

 Vultur Percnopterus, Linn. But Bruce found in Lower 

 Ethiopia a bird which is there named Ahou-hannes (Father 

 John), and on comparing it with the embalmed individuals, 

 and with the ancient descriptions, he recognized it to be the 

 true black and white ibis, with reflexions on several parts of 

 the body, and the same as the Mengel or Ahou-mengel (father 

 of the sickle) of the Arabs. 



This fact has since been fully confirmed by M. Cuvier, by 

 an examination of mummies brought from Egypt by Colonel 

 Grobert and M. Geoffroy, and from other mummies by M. 

 Savigny^ who also found in Egypt the very bird itself, and 

 had an opportunity of examining it in the living state. ]M. 

 Cuvier''s memoir on the subject was first inserted in the 

 Annals of the French Museum ; and in the " Ossemens 

 Fossiles," with a figure which we have copied. M. Savigny has 

 published a natural and mythological history of the same bird. 



VOL. VIII. L L 



