422 GLOSSY IBIS. 
inundation of the Nile, doing Egypt such signal benefit. The 
ibis, whose appearance accompanied these blessings, would 
disappear also at the season when the south desert winds 
from the internal parts of Africa brought desolation in their 
train, which could be averted only by the periodical return of 
the circumstances represented by the bis, which seemed like 
Providence to control them, and was therefore declared the 
real providence of Egypt, though merely the concomitant, 
and by no means the cause of those blessings by which they 
profited in common with all. It thus became so identified 
with the country as to be used as its hieroglyphic representa- 
tive, and was said to be so attached to its native land that it 
would die of grief if carried out of it, and it was on account 
of its fidelity to the soil that it was honoured as its emblem. 
So good a citizen could not of course from selfish motives 
migrate periodically, and its absence must have been for its 
country’s sake! Hence the ridiculous tale current through- 
out antiquity, and strengthened by the testimony of Hero- 
dotus, A®lian, Solinus, Marcellinus, copied by Cicero (who 
went so far as to assign to the ibis proper instruments for the 
purpose, such a strong bill), by Pliny and others, and credited 
in our days to a certain extent by Buffon, who thus accounted 
for the divine honours it received. I allude to the story of 
their attacking and destroying periodically on the limits of 
civilisation immense flocks of small but most pernicious 
winged serpents generated by the fermentation of marshes, 
which, without the generous protection afforded by the a 
would cause the utter ruin of Egypt. 
Still more unaccountable is it that naturalists and philo- 
sophers should have been so long in finding out the true mean- 
ing of this oriental figure. How could the ibis with its feeble 
bill, whose pressure can be hardly felt on the most delicate 
finger, and which is only calculated for probing in the mud 
after small mollusca and worms in places just left bare after 
an inundation, how could such a weapon cut to pieces and 
destroy so many monsters if they had existed? How could 

