APPENDIX. 173 



laave made it lighter, fweeter, and more exhaleable in dew, 

 that is in the beginning of the feafon of the tropical rains, 

 when all water-fowl, that are birds of paflage, refort to Ethi- 

 opia in great numbers. 



As I have obferved this bird has loll its name, fo in the 

 hiftory of Egypt and Ethiopia we have loft a bird, once very 

 remarkable, of which now nothing remains but the name, 

 this is the Ibis, to which divine honours were paid, whofe 

 bodies were embalmed and preferved with the fame care as 

 thofe of men. There ftill remain many repofitories full of 

 them in Egypt, and appear everywhere in collections in 

 the hands of the curious. Though the manner that thefe 

 birds are prepared, and cauftic ingredients, with which the 

 body is injected, have greatly altered the confiflency of their 

 parts, and the colour of their plumage, yet it is from thefe, 

 viewed and compared deliberately, and at leifure, that I 

 am convinced the Abou Hannes is neither more nor lefs 

 than the Ibis. 



Several authors, treating of this bird, have involved it in 

 more than Egyptian darknefs. They have firfl faid it was 

 a ftork, then the hsematopus, or red-legged heron ; they then 

 fay its colour is of a fine mining black, its beak and legs of 

 a deep red. Some have faid it was from it that men learn- 

 ed the way to adminifter clyfters, others, that it conceived 

 at the beak, and even laid eggs that way, and that its fleih. 

 is fweet and red like that of a falmon. All thefe and many 

 more are fables. We know from Plutarch, that in the 

 plumage, it is black and white like the pelargus. And the 

 mummy pits, by f urn idling part of the bird itfelf, confirm 

 us in the opinion. 



A a 2 The 



