GLOSSY IBIS. 433 
the second longest. The feet are rather slender, and the tar- 
sus much longer than the middle toe: their colour is greenish 
lead, somewhat reddish at the joints: tarsus scutellated, four 
inches long; the naked part of the tibia nearly three inches ; 
the toes are slender, the middle without the nail is two and a 
half, and the hind toe one inch long: the nails are long and 
slender, but truncated and of a dark horn colour: the middle 
one is the longest, and slightly curved outwards, dilated on 
the inner side to a thin edge, which is irregularly and broadly 
pectinated. This character is particularly worthy of remark, 
inasmuch as none of the genus but this exhibit it, and it may 
be of great use in deciding at once whether mummies belong 
to this species or not, though we regret that no one appears 
ever to have thought of having recourse to it to determine 
this controverted question. 
The adult female is perfectly similar to the male in all 
except size, being very sensibly smaller. 
Under two years of age they resemble the adult, but the 
head and neck are of a much darker colour, the chestnut hav- 
ing nothing vivid, but rather verging upon blackish brown, 
and all speckled with small dashes of white disposed longi- 
tudinally on the margins of the feathers, and disappearing 
gradually as the bird advances in age: the under parts and 
the thighs are of a blackish grey, more or less verging upor 
chestnut according to age, the back acquiring its brilliant 
colours in the same manner. It is in this state that most 
authors, Brisson especially, have described their Numenius 
viridis, which for a long time usurped the privilege of some« 
what representing the type of the species. 
The young has these white lines longer and more numerous, 
and the lower parts of a darker blackish grey. 
This bird does not appear in its full plumage until the 
third year, and is so different from the adult as to furnish an 
excuse for those who in that state have considered it as a dis- 
tinct species. ‘The bill is brown: the feathers of the head 
and of the throat are dark brownish with a whitish margin, 
VOL, II. 25 
