GLOSSY IBIS. 51 



species having been found in the United States. I was informed that a 

 recent specimen of this bird was, likewise in the month of May, presented 

 to the Baltimore Museum, and that two individuals were killed in the dis- 

 trict of Columbia." In the sequel Mr. Ord compares it with Dr. Latham's 

 account of the Tantalus Mexicanus of that author, and conjectures that it 

 is the same. 



It is not a little curious to see the changes of opinion that have taken 

 place within these few years among naturalists who have thought of com- 

 paring American and European specimens of the birds which have been 

 alleged to be the same in both continents. The Prince of Musignano, for 

 example, who has given a figure of the very individual mentioned by Mr. 

 Ord, thought at the time when he published the fourth volume of his con- 

 tinuation of Wilson's American Ornithology, that our Glossy Ibis was the 

 one described by the older European writers under the name of Ibis Fal- 

 cinellus. Now, however, having altered his notions so far as to seem 

 desirous of proving that the same species of bird cannot exist on both the 

 continents, he has latterly produced it anew under the name of Ibis Ordi. 

 This new name I cannot with any degree of propriety adopt. I consider it 

 no compliment to the discoverer of a bird to reject the name which he has 

 given it, even for the purpose of calling it after himself. 



The Glossy Ibis is of exceedingly rare occurrence in the United States, 

 where it appears only at long and irregular intervals, like a wanderer who 

 has lost his way. It exists in Mexico, however, in vast numbers. In the 

 spring of 1S37, I saw flocks of it in Texas; but even there it is merely a 

 summer resident, associating with the White Ibis, along the grassy margins 

 of the rivers and bayous, and apparently going to and returning from its 

 roosting places in the interior of the country. Its flight resembles that of 

 its companion, the White Ibis, and it is probable that it feeds on the same 

 kinds of crustaceous animals, and breeds on low bushes in the same great 

 associations as that species, but we unfortunately had no opportunity of veri- 

 fying this conjecture. Mr. Nuttall, in his Ornithology of the United 

 States and Canada, says that "a specimen has occasionally been exposed for 

 sale in the market of Boston." 



I have given the figure of a male bird in superb plumage, procured in 

 Florida, near a wood-cutter's cabin, a view of which is also given. 



Ibis Falcinellus, Bonap. Syn., p. 312. 



Bay or Glossy Ibis, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 88. 



Glossy Ibis, Ibis Falcinellus, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. \v. p. 608. 



Male, 25, 42; wing, Hi 



Rare or accidental in the Middle Atlantic Districts; more common in 



