ON THE IBIS. 169 



even says that we must give up the idea of understanding the ancients 

 when they speak so as to seem unwilling to be understood. He 

 concludes that the ancients have perhaps indiscriminately' comprised 

 under the name of ibis, all those birds which were serviceable to Egypt 

 in clearing it of the dangerous reptiles which the climate abundantly 

 produced; such as the vulture, falcon, stork, sparrow hawk, &c. 



He was right in not considering his Pharaoh's fowl as the ibis; for, 

 though the description is very imperfect, and Buffon believed that he 

 detected the ibis in it, it is easily seen, as well as by what Pococke says 

 of it, that this bird must have been carnivorous ; and, in fact, we see 

 by the figure given by Bruce (vol. v, p. 191, of the French edition), 

 that Pharaoh's fowl was only the rachama, or small white vulture, with 

 black wings (vultur perenopterus of Linnaeus) a bird very different from 

 that which we have above proved to be the ibis. 



Pococke says, that it appears by the descriptions given of the ibis, 

 and by the figures which he had seen of it in the temples of Upper 

 Egypt, that it was a species of crane. I have seen, he adds, a quan- 

 tity of these birds in the islands of the Nile ; they were for the most 

 part of a greyish colour (French translation, ed. 12mo.vol. ii. p. 153). 

 These few words are enough to prove that he did not know the ibis 

 better than the others. 



The learned have not been more fortunate in their conjectures than 

 the travellers. Middleton compares with the ibis, a bronze figure of 

 a bird with a short curved beak, the neck very long, and the head orna- 

 mented with a' small crest, a' figure which never had any similarity to 

 the bird of the Egyptians (Antiq. Mon. pi. 10, p. 129). This figure, 

 besides, is not at all in the Egyptian style, and Middleton himself 

 agrees that it must have been made at Rome. Saumaise, on Solinus, 

 says nothing which relates to the real question. 



As to the black ibis, which Aristotle places near Pelusium only *, it 

 was long thought that Belom alone had seen it f . The bird described 

 by him under this name, is a species of curlew, to which he attributes 

 a head similar to that of the cormorant, that is to say, apparently bald, 

 with red beak and feet % ; but as he makes no mention of the ibis in 

 his journey §, I suspect that it was only in France that he made this 

 relation of the two, and by comparison with the ibis mummies. It 

 is certain that the curlew with red beak and feet, was unkuown in 



* Hist. Anim. lib. ix, cap. xxvii, and lib. x, cap. xxx. 



+■ Buffcra's Hist. Natur. des Oiseaux, in 4to. vol. viii, p. 17. 



X Belon. Nat. des Oiseaux, pp. 199 and 200 ; and Portraits d' Oiseaux, fol. v. 44. 



§ Observations de plusieurs singularity, &c. 



VOL. I. K 



