ON THE IBIS. 163 



The feet are black, the legs thicker, and the toes evidently longer 

 in proportion than those of the curlew ; the membranes between the 

 bases of the toes are also more extended ; the leg is wholly covered 

 with small polygonal scales, or what are called reticulated ; and the 

 back of the toes even has only similar scales, whilst the curlew has 

 two-thirds of the legs and the whole of the toes, scutulated, that is, 

 furnished with transverse scales. There is a reddish hue under the 

 wing, towards the commencement of the thigh, and on the covers of 

 the large anterior wing ; but this tint appears to be an individual cha- 

 racteristic, or the result of accident ; for it does not appear in any 

 other individuals otherwise precisely similar. 



This first individual came from the collection of the stadtholder, 

 and we do not know its native country. The late M. Desmoulins, 

 assistant naturalist at the museum, who had seen two others, said that 

 they came from Senegal. One of them must have been" brought by 

 M. Geoffroy di Villeneuve. But we shall presently find that Bruce* 

 found this species in Ethiopia, where it is called Abou Hannes (Father 

 John) ; and that Savigny saw it in abundance in Lower Egypt, where 

 it is called Abou Mengel (Father of the Sickle,) It is probable that 

 the moderns will not take the assertion of the ancients literally, that 

 the ibis never quitted its own country without perishing f. 



This assertion would besides be as contrary to the tantalus ibis, as 

 to our curlew ; for the individuals which we have in Europe came from 

 Senegal. It was then that M. Geoffroy de Villeneuve brought that 

 now in the museum of natural history ; it is even much more rare in 

 Egypt than our curlew, since no one after Perrault mentions having 

 seen it there, or received one from thence. 



An individual without the reddish hue, but otherwise entirely simi- 

 lar to the first, was brought home by M. de Labillardiere, after his 

 voyage in Australasia with M. d'Entrecasteaux. 



We have since learnt that this sort of numenius has, when young, 

 the head and neck furnished with feathers on those parts, which, as 

 they advance in age, become denuded, and that the scapularies are less 

 expanded, and of a paler and duller black. It is in this state that the 

 late M. Peron brought one from Australasia, which did not differ from 

 our own and that of M.de Labillardiere, except in some black lines on the 

 early feathers, and the first coverings of the wings, and the head and 

 top of the neck were ornamented with blackish plumage. A young 

 individual brought by M. Savigny from Egypt, and depicted in the 



* Bruce, loc. cit. ; and Sevigny, Mem. sur l'ibis, p. 12. 

 f ^Elian, lib. 2, cap. xxxviii. 



