GLOSSY IBIS. A421 
The credit of having added this beautiful species to the 
fauna of the United States is due to Mr Ord, the well-known 
friend and biographer of Wilson, who several years ago gave 
a good history and minute description of it in the Journal 
of the Academy of Philadelphia, under the name of Tantalus 
Mexicanus? His excellent memoir would have been sufficient 
to establish its identity with the species found so extensively 
in the old world, even if the specimen itself, carefully preserved 
in the Philadelphia Museum, did not place this beyond the 
possibility of doubt. 
Among the natural productions which their priests had 
through policy taught the superstitious Egyptians to worship, 
the ibis is one of the most celebrated for the adoration it 
received, though for what reason it is not easy to understand. 
The dread of noxious animals, formidable on account of their 
strength or numbers, may induce feelings of respect and vene- 
ration, or they may be felt still more naturally for others that 
render us services by destroying those that are injurious, or 
ridding man of anything that interferes with his enjoyments, 
or by ministering to his wants. We can conceive how a sense 
of gratitude should cause these to be held sacred, in order to 
insure their multiplication, and that this sentiment should 
even be carried to adoration. But why grant such honours 
to the wild, harmless, and apparently useless ibis? It is per- 
fectly well proved at this day that the ibis is as useless as it 
is inoffensive, and if the Egyptian priests who worshipped the 
Deity in his creatures declared it pre-eminently sacred; if, 
while the adoration of other similar divinities was confined to 
peculiar districts, that of the ibis was universal over Hegypt ; 
if it was said, that should the gods take mortal forms it would 
be under that of the ibis that they would prefer to appear on 
earth, and so many things of the kind, we can assign no other 
reason than the fact of their appearing with the periodical 
rains, coming down from the upper country when the freshen- 
ing Etherian winds began to blow, when they were driven in 
search of a better climate by the very rains that produce the 
