WADING BIRDS 
IBISES. Family IBIDID/E 
Ibises are gracefully formed birds having a long 
curved bill and a bare face. 
184 . White Ibis. Guara alba. 
Range. — This is a tropical and sub-tropical 
species which is found along the Gulf coast, and 
north to South Carolina, west to Lower California. 
These handsome birds are wholly white, with 
the exception of black primaries. The legs and 
the bare skin of the face is orange red. These 
birds are very abundant in most marshy localities 
White Ibis 
Grayish 
along the Gulf coast, especially in Florida, where 
they nest in rookeries of thousands of individuals. 
Owing to their not having plumes, they have not 
been persecuted as have the white herons. They 
build their nests of sticks and grasses, in the 
mangroves a few feet above the water. In other 
localities they build their nests entirely of dead 
rushes, attaching them to the standing ones a foot or more above the surface 
of the water. They are quite substantially made and deeply cupped, very dif- 
ferent from the nests of the Herons. Their eggs are from three to five in num- 
ber, vary from grayish ash to pale greenish or bluish in color, blotched with 
light brown. Size 2.25 x 1.60. The nesting season is during May and June. 
Data. — Tampa Bay, Fla., June 4, 1895. Three eggs. Nest of sticks and a few 
weeds in small bushes on an island. Collector, Fred Doane. 
Scarlet Ibis 
[ 185 .] Scarlet Ibis. Guara rubra. 
Range. — Occasionally, but not recently met with in the southern states. 
Their habitat is tropical America, they being especially abundant along the 
Orinoco River in northern South America. 
Full plumaged adults of this species are wholly bright scarlet, except for the 
primaries, which are black. Their nests are built in impenetrable thickets, 
rushes or mangroves, the nests being constructed like those of the White Ibis. 
The eggs, too, are very similar to those of the preceding species, but both the 
ground color and the markings average brighter. While still common in some 
localities, the species is gradually becoming less abundant, chiefly because of 
the demand for their feathers for use in fly-tying. 
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