170 ON THE IBIS. 



Egypt*, but that the green curlew of Europe (Scohpax falcinellus ol 

 Linnaeus) is commonly seen there, and is even more plentiful than the 

 white numenius f ; and as it resembles it in form and size, and that at 

 a distance its plumage may appear black, we can hardly doubt but this 

 was the real black ibis of the ancients. M. Savigny had a painting 

 made of it in Egypt %, but only from a young individual. The figure 

 of Buffon is from a full-grown bird, but the colours are too bright. 



The mistake which at present prevails respecting the ibis, originated 

 with Perrault, who was the first naturalist who made known the tan- 

 talus ibis of the present day. This error, adopted by Brisson and 

 Buffon, has passed into the twelfth edition of Linneeus, where it is 

 mixed with that of Hasselquist, which had been inserted in the tenth, 

 forming together a most monstrous compound. 



It was founded, under the idea that the ibis was essentially a bird 

 inimical to serpents, and in this very natural conclusion, that a sharp 

 beak was necessary to devour serpents, and more or less analogous to 

 that of the stork or heron. The idea is even the only good objection 

 that can be adduced against the identity of our bird with the ibis. 

 How, it is asked, could a curlew, a bird with a weak beak, devour 

 these dangerous reptiles ? 



Our answer is, that positive proofs, such as descriptions, figures 

 and mummies, should always claim more belief than accounts of pecu- 

 liar habits, too often devised without any other motive, than to justify 

 the various worships paid to animals. We might add, that the ser- 

 pents from which the ibises freed Egypt, are represented as very nu- 

 merous, but not as very large. I believe, too, that I have ascertained 

 decidedly, that the bird mummies, which had a beak precisely similar 

 to that of our bird, were real serpent-eaters ; for I found in one of their 

 mummies the undigested remains of the skin and scales of serpents, 

 which I have preserved in our anatomical galleries. 



But, at the present time, M, Savigny, who has observed whilst 

 living, and even more than once disseeted our white numenius, the 

 bird which everything proves to have been the ibis, asserts that it only 

 eats worms, fresh-water shell-fish, and other similar Fsmall animals. 

 Supposing that there is no exception to this, all we can conclude is, 

 that the Egyptians, as has before occurred to them and others, gave a 

 false reason for an absurd worship. It is true, that Herodotus said, 

 that he saw in a place on the borders of the desert §, near Buto, a 



* Savigny. Mem. sur l'lbis, p. 37. 



-j- Idem, ibid. 



X See the great work on Egypt. Hist. Nat. des Oiseaux, pi. 7-, fig. 2. 



§ Euterpe, cap. lxxv. Herodotus 9ays, a place in Arabia; but we cannot see how 

 a place of Arabia could be near the city of Uutawhich was in the western part of the 

 Delta. 



