The White-faced Glossy Ibis 



are never twice alike, the 

 colony shifts from year 

 to year, and I have not 

 been so fortunate as to 

 find it in three trials. The 

 birds are said to build in 

 loose colonial fashion, sev- 

 eral hundred pairs in an 

 area of forty acres, select- 

 ing for the purpose the 

 least accessible mazes of 

 the "tule" or giant Scirpus. 

 The nests are merely plat- 

 forms of broken-down tules, 

 augmented, or not, with 

 some interlacing of loose 

 stems. The eggs, three or 

 four in number, are of a 

 rich dark bluish green, 

 quite the handsomest in 

 the entire Heron order. 

 Their distinctness of type 

 probably entitles the own- 

 ers to separate family rank, 

 the PlegadidcB. Indeed, 

 viewed oologically, the 

 Spoonbills, family Platale- 

 idcB, stand in nearer rela- 

 tionship to the IbididcB 

 proper than do either to 

 the PlegadidcB, the Bronze Ibises. 



The chief interest of the nesting region attaches to the appearance and 

 spectacular flight of the wide-ranging groups of foraging birds. Pairs 

 or squads or small platoons are likely to be flushed anywhere within ten 

 miles of the central rookery. At such times the self-conscious birds vault 

 into the air with startled cries, not unlike the grunting of pigs, moik, or 

 oigh, oigh. A flying company, coming upon observers in ambush, will 

 flinch or corkscrew most picturesquely (not to say pathetically) each for 

 himself. But left to themselves, they fall into line behind some trusted 

 leader, and move off at a very businesslike pace. In my opinion few sights 

 in the marshes equal the vision of a passing company of Bronze Ibises, 

 timid mementoes of the elder magnificence. 



Taken on Laguna Blanca 



Photo by the Author 



A STUDY IN BRONZE 



1929 



