Chapter XXXIV. 



THE IBIS AND CRANE. 



There is something in human nature which is attracted 

 by mere size. Given a giant and there at once is a being 

 which people will pay to see. Given a big bird and the 

 ordinary bird-lover is sure to take special note of it, 

 notwithstanding the fact that there may be many smaller 

 ones far more deserving attention. This much is urged in 

 part apology for the present chapter. One cannot but be 

 struck \A'ith the upstanding appearance of a crane, with its 

 length of leg, of neck, and of bill, with its extraordinary 

 appearance on the wing, of which Japanese artists have made 

 such wonderful use, and with its dignified stalk as it ^\■alks or 

 wadesin search of food. The crane is the tallest birdinChina, 

 and I hopethat fact may excusesome little subservience. But 

 to make the apology complete it must have attached to it 

 a further confession that it is mere size and nothing more 

 which has brought together the ibis and the crane in one 

 chapter, for the former belongs of right to the heron tribe, 

 whilst the latter is more closely allied to the bustards. As an 

 excuse it may be added that it is hardly true to say that size 

 as the only link: for there is the fact that both ibis and crane 

 love low-lying lands, and feed on much the same sort of food. 



Visitors to the Shanghai Museum will see two specimens 

 of the ibis known as Ibis Nippon, the Japanese variety, 

 in which the beak is some nine or ten inches long, red tipped, 

 the head bald and red in colour, the irides yellow, the crest 

 and neck of an ash}- grey, and all the rest white. Swinhoe 

 tells of having met with this particular species along the 

 banks of the Tamsui River in N. Formosa. There is a rosy 

 tinge in the white of these birds, more marked in some cases 

 than in others. The Ibis Nippon ranges quite \videly in China, 

 migrating as circumstances require. He is of a watchful, 

 suspicious nature, with little trust even of the harmless 

 farmer of the Chinese fields. 



The so-called Sacred Ibis is not known in China. He 

 is essentially an African bird. Strange to say he has 

 disappeared from Egypt where, in ancienttimes, he was treated 

 with such marked reverence. In India and China his place 

 is taken by /. melanocephala, the black-headed ibis. An Arab 



