WADING BIRDS 



IBISES. Family IBIDID^ 



Ibises are gracefully formed birds having a long 

 curved bill and a bare face. 



184. White Ibis. Guara alba. 



Range. — This is a tropical and sub-tropical 

 species which is found along the Gulf coast, and 

 north to South Carolina, west to Lower California. 



These handsome birds are wholly white, with 

 the exception of black primaries. The legs and 

 the bare skin of the face is orange red. These 

 birds are very abundant in most marshy localities 





White Ibis 



Scarlet Ibis 



Grayish 



along the Gulf coast, especially in Florida, where 

 they nest in rookeries of thousands of individuals. 

 Owing to their not having plumes, they have not 

 been persecuted as have the white herons. They 

 build their nests of sticks and grasses, in the 

 mangroves a few feet above the water. In other 

 localities they build their nests entirely of dead 

 rushes, attaching them to the standing ones a foot or more above the surface 

 of the water. They are quite substantially made and deeply cupped, very dif- 

 ferent from the nests of the Herons. Their eggs are from three to five in num- 

 ber, vary from grayish ash to pale greenish or bluish in color, blotched with 

 light brown. Size 2,25 x 1.60. The nesting season is during May and June, 

 Data. — Tampa Bay, Fla., ,Iune 4, 1S95. Three eggs. Nesf of sticks and a few 

 weeds In small bushes on an island. Collector, Fred Doane. 



[185.] Scarlet Ibis. Guara rubra. 



Range. — Occasionally, but not recently met with in the southern states. 

 Their habitat is tropical America, they being especially abundant along the 

 Orinoco River in northern South America. 



Full plumaged adults of this species are wholly bright scarlet, except for the 

 primaries, which are black. Their nests are built in impenetrable thickets, 

 rushes or mangroves, the nests being constructed like those of the White Ibis. 

 The eggs, too, are very similar to those of the preceding species, but both the 

 ground color and the markings average brighter. While still common in some 

 localities, the species is gradually becoming less abundatit, chiefly because of 

 the demand for their feathers for use in fly-tying, 



117 



