The White-faced Glossy Ibis 



In view of the present scarcity of this, the only American stork-like 

 bird which reaches our borders, and of its very manifest dependence upon 

 a southern dispersion center, it becomes of interest to note that bones of 

 the Jabiru (J. mycteria) have been found in the Rancho La Brea beds near 

 Los Angeles, and that this same fertile source furnishes specimens of an 

 entirely new species, a true stork, Ciconia maltha Miller. 



The storks are rather stupid birds, perhaps because they are such 

 gluttons. They are, however, shrewd enough in procuring food, if 

 Audubon's account be correct. He says that a large company 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 by the birds' powerful 

 beaks, 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 had 

 opportunity to note these wholesale methods of slaughter. Mr. J. E. 

 Law, who took a specimen at Dominguez Station, near Long Beach, 

 found the bird standing knee-deep in muddy water, where it would insert 

 its bill nearly to the eyes, and then, standing on one foot, would appear 

 to be stirring up the water with the other. 



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- 

 tion — a sort of morning constitutional, necessary to well-fed burghers 

 who would avoid gout. Whatever may induce these storks to play the 

 buzzard for a time each day, they certainly present a pleasing and im- 

 pressive spectacle, as, with plumage rendered striking by reason of its 

 contrasting blacks and whites, they wheel aloft in majestic circles whose 

 dizzy and distant mazes test the eyesight. 



No. 391 



White-faced Glossy Ibis 



A. O. U. No. 187. Plegadis guarauna (Linnaeus). 



Synonyms. — "Water Turkey." Swamp Turkey. Black Curlew. 



Description. — Adults: General color rich purplish chestnut, purest on neck, 

 lesser wing-coverts, and underparts (except lining of wings and crissum), the purple 

 lustrous and dominant on middle of back and tertials, heavily admixed with greenish 

 black on tail-coverts both upper and under, showing violet reflections on crown, middle 

 wing-coverts, axillars, etc.; remainder of wings, including quills and tail, shiny bronzy 



1924 



