522 BRITISH BIRDS. 



insects and frogs, for which it may often be seen searching on the low- 

 lying coasts and on the shores of lakes and rivers, walking ahout some- 

 thing like a Curlew. 



The most celebrated breeding-place of the Ibis in Europe is the district 

 in the valley of the Danube near Belgrade, extending northwards into the 

 valley of the Theiss, and southwards into that of the Save. This district, 

 extending for a hundred miles from the Weisse Morast to the Obedska 

 Bara, is the Eldorado of Herons, Ibises, Spoonbills, Cormorants, Terns, 

 Gulls, Sandpipers, Ducks, Geese, and Pelicans. It looks like an endless 

 plain, a boundless forest of reeds, a paradise of fish and fish-eating birds, 

 full of rivers and lakes, ponds and canals, marshes and swamps, flooded 

 meadows, half -drowned forests of pollard willows and alders, every possible 

 combination to make bird-life easy and bird-nesting dif&cult. The Danube 

 and its tributaries rise in summer like the Nile. Hundreds of square 

 miles are under water; but in most places the reeds and rushes, the sedge 

 and rank vegetation of all kinds are so thick that it is seldom possible to 

 squeeze a boat through them. Many of the colonies are absolutely inac- 

 cessible, and those that can be reached require the assistance of a guide 

 ■who is acquainted with the intricate labyrinths of the channels which lead 

 to them. When once they are reached the sight is one that remains 

 photographed for ever on the eyes of the ornithologist. I have twice been 

 in this district, but not in the breeding-season, and must refer my readers to 

 the glowing description of the Weisse Morast to be found in ' Naumannia,' 

 i. pt. 2, p. 73, written more than, thirty years ago by Baldamus, and the 

 briefer account of the Obedska Bara, communicated to the ' Ibis ' for 1884, 

 p. 125, by my friend Mr. W. Eagle Clarke. 



The Ibis builds in willows which are half under water, and makes its 

 nest at various heights from the surface in the same trees as Common 

 Herons, Night-Herons, Squacco Herons, Little Egrets, and Pigmy Cor- 

 morants. Sometimes one tree will contain nests of all the six species. 

 The Great Cormorant and the Spoonbill are not so sociable; they each 

 occupy a part of the forest reserved for themselves, but in the immediate 

 neighbourhood, sometimes surrounded by the nests of the other species — 

 a colony within a colony. The nests are made of sticks and reeds; but 

 whether they are built on the radius model of the Egret or on the arc 

 model of the Cormorant it is impossible to say. The eggs are said to be 

 three, and occasionally four, in number. They are dark greenish blue in 

 colour, rather rough in texture, and the shell is finely pitted with small 

 pores. They vary in length from 2'2 to 2*0 inch, and in breadth from 

 1-55 to 1"38 inch. The eggs of the Ibis cannot well be confused with 

 those of any other European bird ; they are readily distinguished from 

 those of the Herons by their much darker colour and less chalky 

 appearance. 



