GLOSSY LE1S. 427 
Two different kinds of ibis were known to the ancients, and 
looked upon by the Eeyptians as sacred—the white, common 
throughout Egypt, and the black, which was said to be found 
only in a peculiar district. It is the latter of which we are 
now to treat, a bird long known to, but not recognised by, 
naturalists ; whilst the white was only rediscovered, in later 
times, by the courageous Abyssinian traveller, Bruce, who first 
among the moderns obtained correct notions respecting it. 
Bruce’s ibis has been since proclaimed by Cuvier and Savigny 
the true ibis, in place of the Tantalus ibis of Linné, which he so 
called for want of knowing the real ibis, believing this to be it, 
though but very seldom even found in Egypt. This opinion, 
which though more plausible than that which it superseded, 
was still erroneous, originated with Perrault, and was adopted 
and maintained by Buffon, Brisson, Linné, Blumenbach, and 
all others until lately, when Colonel Grobert returning from 
Egypt presented Fourcroy with mummies which enabled 
Cuvier first to perceive that the ibis was not a Tantalus, but 
a true Jbzs, which genus he did not then distinguish from 
Numenius. Savigny in the year 1806, by an admirable work 
on the ibis, put the question at rest. 
The sacred white ibis, though not in reality peculiar to 
Egypt, where it is seen only at certain seasons of the year, 
does not, however, migrate to far distant countries: it is spread 
throughout Africa, and species extremely similar to it are 
found in India and Ceylon. But it is not our province to 
treat of it, and it has already formed the subject of several 
volumes. 
We have already remarked that Buffon justly indicated the 
natural relations of the ibis by stating that it was intermediate 
between the stork and the curlew. What he said of the 
species we shall extend to the three families to which the 
three birds belong in our system. In the transition from one 
sroup to another, Nature seems often to make the passage by 
insensible intermediate steps, and it sometimes happens that 
the species placed on the limits of two groups belong decidedly 
