48o THE WOOD IBIS. 



No. 216. 



WOOD IBIS. 



A. O. U. No. 188. Tantalus loculator. Linn. 



Synonyms. — American Wood Stork; Water Turkey. 



Description.^ — Adult : Plumage pure white ; wing-quills and tail shining 

 greenish black, or with violet and bronzy reflections ; head and about six inches of 

 neck bare, covered with scurfy skin, dusky gray ; bill mostly dingy yellow ; tarsi 

 blue-black; toes black at base, becoming yellow toward claws and on webs. 

 Young : Face only bare ; hind head and neck, where bare in adult, covered thinly 

 by fuscous, woolly feathers ; remaining plumage as in adults, but duller or grayish ; 

 quills and tail less glossy. Length 35.00-45.00 (889.-1143.) ; wing 17.70-20.00 

 (449.6-508.) ; tail 8.50 (215.9) ; bill 7.00-9.60 (177.8-243.8) ; tarsus 7.80 (198.1) ; 

 middle toe and claw 4.95 (125.7). 



Recognition Maries. — Eagle size; white plumage; large bill; bare head and 

 neck of adult. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in Ohio. Nest, a loose platform of sticks, lined 

 with moss, and placed high in trees. Eggs, 2 or 3, chalky-white, with flaky white 

 deposits on the rough shell, rarely spotted with reddish brown. Av. size, 2.75 x 

 1.80(69.9x45.7). 



General Range. — Southern United States from the Ohio Valley, Colorado, 

 Utah, southeastern California, etc., south to Argentine Republic. Casually north- 

 ward to Pennsylvania and New York. 



Range in Ohio. — Rare and casual. One positive record, several inferential. 



THE great family of Storks, so familiar to^ our Old World friends, 

 especially the Germans, l^as regularly but one representative in the United 

 States, the Wood Ibis, confined pretty closely to the lagoons and bayous 

 of the Southern States. The Storks are rather stupid birds, perhaps because 

 they are such notorious gluttons. They are, however, shrewd enough in 

 procuring food, if Audubon's account is correct. He says that a large com- 

 pany of them will enter a shallow pool of water and stir up the mud by 

 dancing about, until the frenzied fish, frogs, and young alligators, venturing 

 too near the surface, are rapidly knocked on the head in turn with the bird's 

 powerful beak, and there left to float until the drive is completed. Then 

 the birds gorge themselves and stand about the margin of the pond in sated 

 rows, while digestion wrestles with its task. Recent observers have not 

 noted these wholesale methods of slaughter, but have oftener found the 

 birds singly or in pairs, raking the oozy bottoms with their feet, and quickly 

 seizing with open bill whatever prey is brought to light. 



It was Audubon, too, who would account for the well-known habit, 

 which these birds have, of mounting into the air and soaring about at great 

 heights during the later hours of the morning, by calling it an aid to diges- 



