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THE WHITE IBIS. 



Ibis alba, Vieill. 



PLATE CCXXII. Adult Male, and Young. 



Sandy Island, of wliich I have already spoken in my second volume, 

 is remarkable as a breeding-place for various species of water and land 

 birds. It is about a mile in length, not more than a hundred yards broad, 

 and in form resembles a horse-shoe, the inner curve of which looks toward 

 Cape Sable in Florida, from which it is six miles distant. At \o\\ water, 

 it is surrounded to a great distance by mud flats abounding in food for 

 wading and swimming birds, while the plants, the fruits, and the insects 

 of the island itself, supply many species that are peculiar to the land. 

 Besides the White Ibis, we found breeding there the Brown Pelican, the 

 Purple, the Louisiana, the White, and the Green Herons, two species of 

 Gallinule, the Cardinal Grosbeak, Crows, and Pigeons. The vegetation 

 consists of a few tall mangroves, thousands of wild plum trees, several 

 species of cactus, some of them nearly as thick as a man's body, and 

 more than twenty feet high, different sorts of smilax, grape-vines, cane, 

 palmettoes, Spanish bayonets, and the rankest nettles I ever saw, — all so 

 tangled together, that I leave you to guess how difficult it was for my 

 companions and myself to force a passage through them in search of birds' 

 nests, which, however, we effected, although the heat was excessive, and 

 the stench produced by the dead birds, putrid eggs, and the natural ef- 

 fluvia of the Ibises, was scarcely sufFerable. But then, the White Ibis 

 was there, and in thousands ; and, although I already knew the bird, I 

 wished to study its manners once more, that I might be enabled to pre- 

 sent you with an account of them, which I now proceed to do, — endeavour- 

 ing all the while to forget the pain of the numerous scratches and lacera- 

 tions of my legs caused by the cactuses of Sandy Island. 



As we entered that well-known place, we saw nests on every bush, 

 cactus, or tree. Whether the number was one thousand or ten I cannot 

 say, but this I well know : — I counted forty-seven on a single plum-tree. 

 These nests of the White Ibis measure about fifteen inches in their great- 

 est diameter, and are formed of dry twigs intermixed with fibrous roots 

 and green branches of the trees growing on the island, which this bird 



