ORDER GRALL^. 519 



frequently occupy itself in seeking for earth-worms around 

 the house, or following the labours of a negro gardener. In 

 the evening, this bird would retire of itself into a poultry- 

 house, where it reposed in the midst of a hundred fowl. It 

 would perch on the highest bar, awake very early in the 

 morning, fly round the house, and sometimes proceed to the 

 sea-shore. It would attack cats with great intrepidity. It 

 would have lived longer, had it not been accidentally killed, 

 by a fowler, who mistook it for a wild curlew, when it was 

 on a pond. All this shows the possibility of rearing in the 

 warm climates of Europe a bird which, according to the tes- 

 timony of Laet, has already produced in a domestic state, and 

 may, perhaps, one day be turned to good account. 



The Ibis Alhicollis or Tantalus Alhicollis, is found in 

 Cayenne, and is a little stronger than the European Curlew. 

 It is also called Ctiricaca, or Mandiirria^ and, according to 

 M. d'Azara, is found in couples, in families, and in troops of 

 fifty. It prefers dry to humid grounds, and neither enters 

 into water, nor into inundated places. It lives on earth-worms, 

 grasshoppers, and insects, which it even picks oflp dead 

 animals. The indi\dduals which inhabit the same canton, 

 assemble together on the driest and loftiest trees, on the bor- 

 ders of woods, from which in the morning they proceed over 

 the adjacent territory. On the trunk of broken trees they 

 place a deep nest, composed of a quantity of small wood. 

 M. d''Azara has seen an individual of this species equally well 

 tamed with the last. 



The birds of the genus Curlew were designated by the 

 Greeks under the names Clorios and Noumenios, and by 

 ancient natui'alists as Numenius, Arquata, Falcinellus. 

 Linnaeus placed them among the snipes ; but more modem 

 naturalists have removed them from that division, imdcr the 

 generic appellation Numenhis, which signifies of or belong- 

 ing to the new moon, in consequence of the crescented form 

 of their bill. 



