and other Birds found in Egypt. 175 



Ibis is not now a native of Egypt or Nubia. He fixes its 

 northern limit on the Nile at 14° or 15° of north latitude ; 

 and states, that it migrates to Chartum in July, and breeds 

 there on the shores of the White Nile. Heuglin records it 

 in his list of birds collected on the Eed Sea.* Bruce gives 

 a faithful description of the bird.f Between the Sacred 

 Ibis and the Ihis hengalis there seems a very close 

 alliance. The earlier naturalists, such as BufFon, Belon, 

 Perrault, &c., either never saw the bird, or were constantly 

 confounding it with the Tantalus ihis and the storks. Belon, 

 in his description of an ibis in the menagerie at Versailles, 

 is evidently noting the characters of the black stork ;J 

 moreover, the Egyptian vulture has been frequently mistaken 

 by travellers for our bird, and the common buff-backed heron § 

 at the present day pays the penalty of death from many 

 Nile voyagers, in order to be preserved as the sacred Ibis, on 

 account of its white colour, for in no other respect is there 

 any resemblance. A difficulty to be accounted for with re- 

 ference to the presence of the Ibis in Egypt during the exist- 

 ence of the ancient race is, — How did they obtain the bird ? 

 and that we can only conjecture by its having been gradually 

 introduced, and having there propagated itself. Eggs have 

 been found along with mummied birds ; and in the Anti- 

 quarian Society of Edinburgh there is a collection of eggs 

 found at Thebes by my late lamented companion Mr Ehind,|| 

 which it would be well to compare with those of the ex- 

 istent Ihis sacra. From the enormous numbers of mummied 

 bodies found both at Thebes and between the pyramids of 

 Sacarah and Gizah, there cannot be a doubt but that the 

 birds were very numerous. To have regularly imported 

 young or old from the upper country would scarcely have 

 been possible, and we have no proof whatever of the bird 

 having ever been indigenous in Egypt or Nubia ; besides, 

 there is no reason why it should not have bred freely in 

 a domesticated state, especially as long as it held its posi- 

 tion among the sacred birds, which Herodotus tells us were 



Ibis, vol. i. p. 34. t Ibis, vol. vii., App. p. 271. 



\ Obs. de Belon, Paris, 1666. g Ardea bubulcus (Savigny), 



|j See that author's late work, Thebes, its Tombs and their Tenants," 

 p. 52. 



