ibis. 155 



neck black, the feathers fringed with white ; the rest of the body 

 variegated with blackish, blue, green, and vinaceous, and in general 

 very glossy ; hence the bird, in flying, appears gilded, when the sun 

 shines upon it; wing coverts next the body reddish and blue mixed, 

 the next series black, red, and green ; quills and tail green gold, 

 glossed in different lights with red and violet, and equal in length ; 

 legs very long, bright green ; claws crooked, black. 



Inhabits Russia, chiefly the shores of the Don, and about the 

 Choper ; lives on fish and insects ; flies in flocks, and builds on trees. 



One in the Leverian Museum was shot in Cornwall ; another 

 killed near Reading, in Berkshire, by Dr. Lamb, in the spring 1796. 

 Authors who have described these birds, and from whom we have 

 taken chiefly our account, have chosen to make them distinct, but 

 we have much suspicion that the Bay, Green, and Glossy Ibis may 

 hereafter only prove to be the same, varying in colour of plumage 

 from age, or difference of sex. In the collection of Col. Montagu 

 was also one of these, or the Green Ibis, shot in the interior parts 

 of Devonshire : this was a male. 



In Mr. Bullock's Museum was one with a mixture of white on 

 the fore part of the neck ; on the body here and there a chestnut 

 feather, inner part of the wing coverts the same; breast, and the rest 

 of the under parts ferruginous chestnut. 



18.— BALD IBIS. 



Tantalus calvus, hid. Orn. ii. 708. Grn. Lin. i. 649. 

 Courly a tete nue, Buf. viii. 32. PI. enl. 867. 

 Bald Ibis, Gen. Syn. v. 116. 16. 



SIZE of the Curlew; length from twenty-six to thirty-one inches. 

 Bill nearly six inches Jong, and red ; the head and part of the neck 

 bare of feathers, and tuberculated at the back part; the whole 



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