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GLOSSY IBIS. 
Ipis FALCINELLUS, VIEL. 
PLATE CCCLXXXVII. Mate. 
Tue first intimation of the existence of this beautiful species of 
Ibis within the limits of the United States is due to Mr Grorce Orp 
of Philadelphia, the friend and companion of the celebrated ALEXANDER 
Witson. It was described by him in the first volume of the Journal of 
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. He states that “on 
the seventh of May of the present year (1817), Mr Tuomas Say received 
from Mr Oram, of Great Egg Harbour, a fine specimen of Tantalus, 
which had been shot there. It is the first instance which has come to 
my knowledge of this species having been found in the United States. 
I was informed that a recent specimen of this bird was, likewise in the 
month of May, presented to the Baltimore Museum, and that two in- 
dividuals were killed in the district of Columbia.” In the sequel Mr 
Orp compares it with Dr Latuawm’s account of the Tantalus Mexicanus 
of that author, and conjectures that it is the same. 
It is not a little curious to see the changes of opinion that have 
taken place within these few years among naturalists who have thought 
of comparing American and European specimens of the birds which 
have been alleged to be the same in both continents. The Prince of 
Musienano, for example, who has given a figure of the very individual 
mentioned by Mr Orn, thought at the time when he published the 
fourth volume of his continuation of Witson’s American Ornithology, 
that our Glossy Ibis was the one described by the older European writers 
under the name of Ibis Falcinellus. Now, however, having altered his 
notions so far as to seem desirous of proving that the same species 
of bird cannot exist on both the continents, he has latterly produced it 
anew under the name of [bis Ordi.. This new name I cannot with any 
degree of propriety adopt. I consider it no compliment to the disco- 
verer of a bird to reject the name which he has given it, even for the 
purpose of calling it after himself. 
The Glossy Ibis is of exceedingly rare occurrence in the United 
States, where it appears only at long and irregular intervals, like a 
