GLOSSY IBIS. 431 
than the Zantali migrate periodically and to vast distances. 
The habit of resting upon trees, as indeed the whole animal 
economy (a thing never sufficiently considered in the forma- 
tion of natural families of the ibis), separate them from the 
Scolopacide. They are monogamous ; build on high trees, 
both sexes assisting in the construction of the nest: the female 
lays two or three whitish eggs, which she alone incubates, but 
is then fed by the male, and both feed the young, which 
require for a long period the care of the parents, and do not 
leave the nest till able to flutter. They walk slowly, often 
sinking deeply in the mud while watching for prey: their 
gait is measured, and they never run rapidly. Their flight 
is heavy, but high and protracted. ‘Their voice is loud and 
monotonous. In domesticity, like many other birds, they 
become omnivorous. As to anatomical conformation, the 
ibises resemble the genera of Scolopacide: a very thick 
muscular stomach occupies nearly two-thirds of the anterior 
capacity of the abdomen: the swelling of the cesophagus at 
its origin is considerable and very glandulous: the intestines 
form an elliptic mass, composed of a double spiral, besides first 
a turn bordering the gizzard ; they measure upwards of three 
feet in length in the species we treat of. There are two rather 
short and obtuse caecums. 
The bay or glossy ibis is twenty-six inches in length, and 
more than three feet in extent. The bill is of a greenish 
lead colour, somewhat reddish at tip, and varies much in 
length in different specimens,—the longest we have measured 
was five and a half inches from the corners of the mouth : in 
many it is but four inches : it is slender, thicker at base, and 
higher than broad, rather compressed and obtusely rounded 
at tip, and less arcuated than in the other North American 
species; the upper mandible is somewhat longer than the 
lower, thickened and subangulated at base, and flattened 
at its origin: two deep furrows run from the nostrils to 
the extremity, dividing it into three portions; the edges 
of both mandibles are quite entire, and being bent in, they 
