ORNITHOLOGY. 



621 



and pierced through the membrane of the furrow near its 

 base. The forehead and lores are bare of feathers. 



The species of this remarkable genus are distributed 

 over the warmer zones of all the four quarters of the 

 globe, the green or glossy ibis (Ibis falcinellus), being it- 

 self found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and oc- 

 casionally in Great Britain. The sacred or Egyptian ibis 

 (Ibis religiosa, Cuv., — Tantalus Ethiopicus, Latham) is a 

 bird of a more striking and peculiar aspect, though undis- 

 tinguished by much diversity in the colours of its plumage. 

 It measures about two feet six inches in length. The head 

 and neck are, in the adults, bare of feathers, presenting 

 nothing but a dark cutaneous surface. The prevailing 

 colour is white, with long funereal-looking plumes of a 

 purplish black colour, proceeding from beneath the ter- 

 tiary wing-feathers, and hanging down not ungracefully 

 on either side. The legs and feet are deep lead-colour. 

 Among the ancient Egyptians, a people prone to award 

 divine honours to the brute creation, the ibis was regarded 

 as an object of superstitious worship, and its sculptured 

 outline frequently occurs among the hieroglyphical images 

 which adorn the walls of their temples. The conserva- 

 tion of its mystical body occupied the assiduous care of 

 their holiest priests while living, and exercised the gloomy 

 art of their most skilful embalmers when dead. To slay 

 or insult it would have been deemed a crime of the dark- 

 est hue, and sufficient to call down upon the offender the 

 immediate vengeance of heaven. The incarnation of their 

 gods was effected through the medium of this sacred bird, 

 and the tutelary deity of Egypt was supposed to be thus 

 imaged to the eyes of adoring mortals when he descended 

 from the highest heavens. The embalmed bodies of this 

 species are still found in the catacombs, and other places 

 of ancient sepulture ; and the antiquary and the natural- 

 ist marvel alike at the wonderful art which, for some 

 thousand years, has handed down unimpaired to a far-re- 

 moved posterity the form and features of so frail a crea- 

 ture. The perfection of an unknown process has almost 

 defied the ravages of time, and through its intervention 

 the self-same individuals exist in a tangible form, which 

 wandered along the banks of the mysterious Nile m 

 the earliest ages of the world, or " in dim seclusion 

 veiled," inhabited the sanctuary of temples, which though 

 themselves of most magnificent proportions, are now 

 scarcely discernible amid the desert dust of an unpeopled 

 wilderness. 



The natural and mythological histories of this remark- 

 able bird are so closely combined by ancient authors, that 

 it is scarcely possible to gather from their statements any 

 rational meaning. Those, indeed, whose province it is to 

 illustrate the history of mankind, by explaining the rise 

 and progress of superstition, and the frequent connection 

 between certain forms of a delusive worship, and the phy- 

 sical conditions of clime and country, may find in the dis- 

 torted history of Egyptian animals an ample field for the 

 exercise of such ingenious speculations ; but the Zoologist 

 has to do rather with things as they are, than as they 

 were supposed to be, — and his province is co explain (or 

 attempt so to do) the works of the God of nature as they 

 exist in their most beautiful and harmonious simplicity, 

 undeformed by the multitudinous fables of a remote an- 

 tiquity. We need not, then, to inquire whether the basi- 

 lisk be born from an egg produced in the body of the ibis, 

 by a concentration of all the poison of all the serpents 

 which it may have swallowed in the course of a long and 

 reptile-eating life ; — nor whether the casual touch of its 

 lightest plume still suffices not only to enchant and ren- 

 der motionless the largest crocodile, but even to deprive 

 it at once of life ; — nor whether the ibis itself, according 



to an expression of the priest of Hermopolis, sometimes 

 attains to so great an age that " it cannot die," unless 

 when, removed from the sustaining soil of its beloved v 

 Egypt, it sinks beneath the nostalgia of a foreign land ! 

 For we know that the basilisk does not exist ; that young 

 ibises have been seen flapping themselves across the out- 

 stretched bodies of sleeping crocodiles, which afterwards 

 sought the waters of the Nile with their accustomed ala- 

 crity ; and that the age of the sacred bird, though from 

 the skill of the embalmers it may be said to be " in death 

 immortal," does not exceed that of the rest of its con- 

 geners. 



The sacred ibis is usually observed either in pairs, or 

 in small groups of eight or ten together. They build 

 their nests on palms and other elevated trees, and lay two 

 or three whitish eggs. They do not breed in Egypt, but 

 arrive in that country when the waters of the Nile begin 

 to swell. This apparent connection (as of cause and ef- 

 fect) between the presence of these birds and the ferti- 

 lizing flow of the mighty and mysterious river, probably 

 gave rise to their worship as divine agents in immediate 

 connection with those grander processes of nature by 

 which the surface of the earth was regulated, and sustain- 

 ed in a fit condition for the health and prosperity of the 

 human race. A slight knowledge of natural history would 

 indeed have sufficed to show, that such divine honours had 

 not been awarded as a consequence of their destruction 

 of serpents and other venomous reptiles ; for the modern 

 Egyptians confirm the views of Colonel Grobert, that the 

 ibis does not prey on serpents at all, but feeds very much 

 after the manner of the curlew, on insects, worms, small 

 fishes, and molluscous animals. 1 



A smaller sized though much more splendidly attired 

 species, is the scarlet ibis (I. ruber) of America. This 

 brilliant bird is confined to the new world, where it is 

 chiefly tropical, abounding in the West Indies and the 

 Bahama Islands, and stretching southwards of the equator 

 at least as far as Brazil. In the course of the summer (ge- 

 nerally in July and August) it migrates into Florida, Ala- 

 bama, Georgia, and South Carolina, retiring into Mexico 

 and the Carribbean Islands on the approach of the winter 

 season. It is gregarious, feeding along the sea-coast, the 

 shores of estuaries, and the banks of rivers, on small fry, 

 shell-fish, insects, and worms. Although they often perch 

 on trees (where the contrast of their fiery plumage with 

 the surrounding foliage is said to produce a most resplen- 

 dent effect), they build their nests upon the ground. The 

 young for several seasons exhibit obscure shades of brown, 

 they afterwards become spotted with red, and then assume 

 the splendid attire of the parents, which is a uniform and 

 dazzling scarlet, with the exception of the extremities of 

 the first four primaries, which are of a rich bluish black. 

 Pennant says that the scarlet ibis has been domesticated in 

 Guiana ; and Dr Latham possessed one which was brought 

 alive to England, and lived for some time with his poul- 

 try. It is clear from the statements of American writers, 

 that it is, at least in temperate countries, a bird of pas- 

 sage, although Cuvier observes, " que cette espece ne 

 voyage point." When taken young it is easily tamed, and 

 submits to domestication without repining. Delaet says 

 it has even propagated in captivity ; and M. Delaborde 

 has given the history of an individual which he kept for 

 above two years, feeding it on bread, raw or cooked meat, 

 and fish. It was fond of hunting in the ground for worms, 

 and was in use to follow the gardener in expectation of that 

 favourite food. It roosted at night upon the highest perch 

 in the poultry-house, and flew out at an early hour of the 

 morning, sometimes to a great distance from home. Our 

 climate is probably too cold and variable for a bird which 



Gralla- 



tores. 



Wilson's Illustrations of Zoology, VOL i. pi. xix. 



