46 



SACRED IBIS, 



Specific Characters. — Head and neck bare, or only covered with 

 down; the middle toe the same length as the somewhat robust 

 tarsus; primaries tipped with dark metallic: green, and the elon- 

 gated plumose secondaries a dark red purple ; rest of the plumage 

 white. Length twenty-six to thirty inches, carpus to tip fourteen 

 inches, tarsus and middle toe three inches and a half; beak five 

 inches and a half. 



Is the Sacred Ibis a European bird? Sach is the 

 question asked by Priuce C. Bonaparte, in his "Eevue 

 Critique de L'Ornithologie Europeenne," published in 

 1850, repeated by Professor Blasius, in "Naumannia," 

 for 1855, p. 480, and reiterated in a priveite letter 

 written to me by M, De Selys-Longchamps, in 1861. 

 I really must answer to this question that I think it 

 is extremely doubtful whether it ought to be retained 

 in the list of European birds. Temminck, however, 

 speaks confidently, in 1840, of its having been killed 

 in Greece; but neither Count Miilile, or the still more 

 recent Grecian ornithologist Dr. Lindermayer, include it 

 in their list of birds belonging to that country. Then 

 again Professor Nordmann, who lives at Odessa, positively 

 states, according to Degland, that the Sacred Ibis does 

 occur on the northern shores of the Black Sea; and 

 moreover that this is the bird which was seen and 

 described by Pallas, as occurring in the south of Eussia, 

 and not the African species, Tantalus this, which 

 Schlegel, upon the authority of the Russian naturalist, 

 has introduced into the European list. 



As, however, this still doubtful question can only be 

 resolved by facts, I will leave it an open one, and 

 state my reasons why I seize this opportunity of the 

 doubt, for introducing this bird into my work. 



In the first place we have no detailed description of 

 the habits of the allied species, the Glossy Ibis, which 



