Mar., 1918 



THE SCARLET IBIS IN TEXAS 



81 



Mr. J. G. Holman of Weathersford, Oklahoma, a retired farmer and business 

 man, who is spending his declining years with the rod and gun, was at Rockport 

 during the 1916 storm and was with people who saw a Scarlet Ibis on a drift of 

 debris. "It was a Scarlet Ibis all right and a very pretty one. This and the 

 Spoonbill are the only red water birds that are ever found here. I have never 

 killed either kind, but know they are not at all alike. The Spoonbill is more fre- 

 quently seen than the Ibis. I have seen several of them. I saw three of them at 

 one time but I never heard of any one seeing more than one Ibis at a time. In 

 the winter of 1915 I saw a Scarlet Ibis standing in the shallow water below Ar- 

 ansas Pass. It was not fishing. It stood its ground until the boat passed. It 



Fig 10. A Texas-taken specimen (at right) of 

 Scarlet Ibis; in the 'Attwater exhibit in the 

 City Auditorium at Houston. 



was in easy range of an ordinary gun. Two days afterwards I saw a Spoonbill 

 and the day after that I saw another Spoonbill. They were along the shore not 

 far from the pier on which I fished." 



Mr. J. H. Jones of Garden City, Kansas, who has spent several winters at 

 Corpus Christi and Rockport, reports seeing a Scarlet Ibis wading along the 

 shore. This was in November, 1914. On another occasion he saw a fresh-killed 

 specimen that was being displayed at a sporting goods store in Corpus Christi. 



Dr. F. H. Russell of Dallas reports seeing a Scarlet Ibis on one of the nar- 

 row sand-spits below Galveston. The bird was standing still and permitted per- 



