ABOUT THE SPOONBILL. 
309 
surface not only the fish, but all the frogs and water-snakes and young 
alligators that had found an asylum there. 
What is called the sacred ibis, seems to be really identical with the 
buff-backed heron,* which is also known as the "paddy -bird " of India. 
He follows the ploughman as his share tui'ns up the fertile soil, and 
keeps company with the cattle grazing in the green meadows. The Ibis 
religiosa, which figures on the Egyptian monuments, is a tropical bird; 
and if once an inhabitant of Egypt, is no longer found there, except in 
a mummied state in the pits of Memphis and Thebes. In these two 
localities the sepulture varies. At Memphis it is seen that every ibis 
was first embalmed, and then placed in a large oblong earthenware pot 
with a rounded bottom and a lid hermetically sealed by means of some 
kind of cement. But at Thebes it was placed in no earthen receptacle. 
Like other sacred mummies, it and its companions were laid out in 
order in the sepulchral caves ; and there they lie, still retaining their 
form, and almost their substance, with beaks bent doAvn over the 
breast, and legs folded to the body. 
THE SPOONBILL. 
Akin to the ibis is the spoonbill, whose special character is indicated 
by his name. His bill, as broad at the base as it is long, is much broader 
than it is long for the remainder of its extent, and particularly so at the 
extremity, where the two mandibles expand in the shape of a spatula. 
Armed with a tool or implement of such utility, he haunts the river- 
bank, and low- water mark in the great estuaries, shovelling up out of the 
mud or sand the molluscs, worms, and aquatic insects on which he feeds. 
The spoonbill is found in Holland, the Danubian Provinces, the 
south of Russia, as well as in Egypt and Central Asia, and as far south 
as India ; probably also in America. Though he visits Greece every 
year, he and his mate never breed there ; nor do they in Italy, Spain, 
or the south of France. In the warm regions of Southern Asia and 
Egypt he is, we suspect, a sedentary bird ; but in the more northern 
countries he arrives with the storks in March or April, taking his leave 
in August and September. He travels by day, like the ibis ; and in 
' Ardea russata. 
20 A 
