ORDER GRALLiE. 517 



black, was equally reverenced in Egypt, and embalmed in a 

 similar manner. This one is more elegant and slender than 

 the other in its external form, and its internal organs are also 

 more contracted. M. Savigny has opened about twenty in- 

 dividuals of this species, and has found nothing in their very 

 narrow gizzard, but small fluviatile shells, with some debris 

 of vegetables, which probably enveloped the shells at the 

 moment in which they were swallowed, and cannot be con- 

 sidered as properly constituting any part of the aliment of 

 these birds. 



The two species have a powerful and elevated flight. In 

 this action the neck and feet are extended horizontally, and 

 from time to time, the birds, all together, send forth deep and 

 hoarse cries, more powerful in the white ibis than in the 

 black. When these birds alight on lands which they have 

 newly discovered, they remain crowded against each other, 

 and may be seen for entire hours, occupied in searching the 

 mud with their bills, advancing slowly, step by step, and 

 never springing with rapidity like the curlews. The ibis does 

 not nestle in Egypt. Those of the white kind arrive as soon 

 as the Nile begins to increase, and their number augments or 

 diminishes, as do its waters. Their migration takes place 

 towards the end of June, the epocha at which, according to 

 Bruce, they arrive in Ethiopia. The black ibis, which comes 

 later into Egypt, also remains there longer. The moment 

 when the ibides retire with the waters of the Nile, is the time 

 in which the hunters prefer to pursue them. They seldom 

 shoot them with fire-arms, but lay nets for them ; and during 

 autumn, many, whose heads have been previously severed 

 from their bodies, are found in the markets of Lower Egypt, 

 especially in that of Damietta. Many of the ibides, both black 

 and white, were brought alive to M. Savigny, who observed 

 that they most frequently held their body nearly horizontal, 

 with the neck inflected, and the head inclined — were in the 

 habit of striking the earth with the end of their bill, and 



