THE STILT-WALKERS. 



57 



black, and the foot blackish brown. The bare black skin on the neck is of a velvety texture. In 

 the young birds the head and throat are covered with dark brown and blackish feathers edged with 

 white ; the rest of the plumage resembles that of the adult bird. After the first moulting the young 

 attain the streaming shoulder-feathers, but only exhibit the bare head and neck in their third year. 

 This species is from twenty-eight to twenty-nine inches long, and fifty-one broad ; the wing measures 

 from thirteen to fourteen, and the tail six inches. This bird has been the subject of many strange 

 tales from the most remote times, and is called the Sacred Ibis because it figures extensively, and 



1 1 1 (k I 



the white or sacred ibis {Threskiornis religiosa). ONE-FIFTH natural size. 



evidently in a religious character, on the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. It is not improbable that the 

 estimation in which it was held arose from the fact that its annual appearance was coincident with 

 the rising of the Nile, a phenomenon on which depends the prosperity of the whole country. 

 According to our own observations, this species is now but rarely seen in Egypt, and was never met 

 with by us below eighteen degrees north latitude ; it, however, occurs regularly in South Nubia and 

 the Soudan, where it arrives at the beginning of the rainy season, and after having reared its young, 

 migrates, or wanders over the country to a considerable distance. In India it is not uncommon during 

 the cold season. River-banks, marshes, tanks, and water-courses are the situations it usually 

 frequents in search of aquatic insects, molluscs, and probably small reptiles, or it flies in small 

 parties over the steppes in search of grasshoppers, beetles, and similar fare. This Ibis was formerly 

 supposed to destroy and eat snakes, and the supposition appeared corroborated by the fact that 

 vol. iv. — 126 



