IBISES 



(Family Ibididse) 



White Ibis 



{Guara alba) 



Called also: SPANISH CURLEW 

 (Illustration facing p. 49) 



Length — 25 inches. 



Male and Female — Plumage white, except the tips of four outer 

 wing feathers, which are black. Bare space on head ; most 

 of bill and the long legs orange red. Long decurved bill 

 tipped with dusky. Immature birds dull brown, except 

 lower back and under parts, which are white. 



Range — Warmer parts of United States, nesting as far north as 

 Indiana, Illinois, and South Carolina; straying northward 

 annually to Long Island, and casually to Connecticut and 

 South Dakota; winters in West Indies, Central, and northern 

 South America. 



Season — Summer resident or visitor. 



Flocks of these stately, picturesque birds, flying in close 

 squadrons, their plumage glistening in the glare of a tropical sun, 

 their legs trailing after them, are not so familiar a sight even in 

 the Gulf states as once they were. Their destruction can be set 

 down to nothing but wanton cruelty, for their flesh is totally 

 unfit for food, and their usefulness is nil if it does not consist in 

 enlivening waste places with their beauty. 



Morning and evening the close ranks fly to and from the 

 feeding grounds on the shores of lagoons and lakes, or to their 

 favorite roosts, where their ancestors likely as not slept before 

 them. Standing on one leg, with head and bill drawn in to rest 

 between the shoulders and on the breast, the body in a perpen- 

 dicular position, an ibis can remain motionless for hours, a 

 picture of tropical indolence. The bill, which so closely resem- 

 bles the curlew's that this ibis is frequently called Spanish cur- 



IS3 



