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appearance, and we betook ourselves to the castle, where, from a vantage tower, we made them 

 out to be Ibises of a strange species. As evening came on still more arrived, and from our 

 house-top Ave watched them circling round the town in bands of from five to fifteen. At each 

 gyration they dropped lower, and at last came close over our heads, flying close behind each 

 other in single file. They could easily have been shot ; but the Kel ainak being a quasi-sacred 

 bird, it was doubtful how our Turkish host would take its destruction. However, the governor 

 was troubled with no such scruples ; and presently he and his retinue arrived bearing one of the 

 desired birds, which he had, with great good friendship, himself killed; and he further connived 

 at our shooting another next morning. Both specimens were males, and had been feeding on 

 beetles and small lizards, which food is plentiful enough in the immediate neighbourhood. 

 They certainly do not seem to stray far ; and the natives assert that there are no other colonies 

 on the river, either north or south of Biledjik. The former part of the statement is probably 

 true, while the latter appears very doubtful." 



No observer, except Mr. Danford, appears to have noticed this bird in Asia Minor; nor 

 was it observed by Canon Tristram in Palestine; but it is found in North-east Africa, and 

 was first discovered by Hemprich and Ehrenberg near the town of Qonfudah, in Arabia, in 

 lat. 19° N. Von Heuglin states that he met with it on the elevated plateau of Wogara, and 

 obtained both adult and immature birds from Hamedo. He adds that " Bonaparte gives, in 

 error, Nubia as a locality for this bird, also Schlegel the Upper White Nile, and Brehm localities 

 south of 12° N. lat.'.' Mr. Blanford, who saw this bird in Abyssinia, says (Geol. & Zool. of 

 Abyss, p. 436) that he " only met with it on the highlands, once near Senafe, and again in a large 

 flock near Antalo." On the second occasion he received two specimens ; and it appears, he adds, 

 to be by no means common in the region traversed by him. The Bed-cheeked Ibis is also found 

 in the Atlas range. Canon Tristram writes (Ibis, 1860, p. 78) : — " This extraordinary bird I never 

 saw during my second sojourn in Algeria ; but on my first visit to the Sahara in the spring of 

 1856 I obtained two specimens in the rocky ridges beyond Bou Guizoun, on the road to El 

 Aghouat. Unlike the rest of its family, it resorts only to the most arid and desolate mountain 

 ranges, where it consorts with the Raven and the Falcon. Its food, as I ascertained, consists of 

 lizards and serpents ; but it is doubtless ignorant of the flavour of tailless batrachians. It breeds 

 in inaccessible holes of the precipices, which I was unable to reach, though I saw the birds going 

 in and out. Captain Dastugue, of the French ' Genie,' showed me a coarse egg of a deep blue- 

 colour, almost the size of that of the common Heron, which he believed to be the egg of this 

 bird. It does not appear to be gregarious. The bright red legs and feet of a fresh-killed 

 specimen are peculiarly coarse and rough in the scales, adapted evidently for rocks and sand, 

 rather than mud and water. The bare portion of the head and neck is, as well as the bill, of a 

 brilliant crimson." 



Loche states that this Ibis was obtained at Bone ; but he gives no particulars respecting its 

 habits. I possess two eggs from the collection of this gentleman, which are pale bluish white, 

 very faintly marked with pale rufous, and measure 2ff by Iff and 2jf by Iff inch. 



In Western Africa the present species is replaced by Ibis olivacea, Dubus (Bull. Acad. 

 Brux. 1837, p. 103), of which I have not been able to examine a specimen, but which appears to 

 be quite distinct from the present species ; for it has the head, neck, and breast brownish yellow, 



