Genus IBIS*. 
Bill long, curved throughout, slender at the tip, high and wide at the base, the sides perpen- 
dicular and suddenly compressed to about the middle ; culmen rounded at the tip and elevated 
above the naral groove at the base ; sides of the forehead higher than the centre ; naral groove 
running parallel to the culmen and extending to the tip ; nostrils linear, placed in a horizontal 
membrane. Wings with the 2nd quill the longest ; tertials equal in length to the primaries. 
Tarsus reticulate. Toes stout, bordered by a narrow membrane. 
Head bare in the adult. Tertials lengthened and decomposed, and the pectoral feathers 
elongated in the breeding-season. 
IBIS MEL ANOCEPHALA. 
(THE BLACK-HEADED WHITE IBIS.) 
Tantalus melanocephalus, Lath. Ind. Orn. p. 709 (1790). 
Ibis melanocepliala (Lath.), Vieill. Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat. xvi. p. 23 (1817); Elliot, P. Z. S. 
1877, p. 488; Salvadori, Uccelli di Borneo, p. 359 (1874); Hume, Str. Feath. 1879, 
p. 114 (List B. of Ind.). 
ThresMornis melanocephalus (Lath.), Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. B. p. 275 (1849) ; Jerdon, 
B. of Ind. iii. p. 768 (1864) ; Layard, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1854, xiv. p. 115 ; 
Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 479; Legge, Ibis, 1875, p. 404; Hume, Nests and Eggs, iii. 
p. 632 (1875). 
Black-headed Ibis , Lath. ; White Ibis, White Curlew , Indian sportsmen. Munda , Hind., also 
Sufeid buza and Kachia tori (Purneah) ; Sabut buza, Bengal. 
Tattu-koka, lit. “ Bald Koka,” Sinhalese. 
Adult male ( Ceylon). Length 29'0 inches ; wing 14-5; tail 5-0; tarsus 4-25; bare tibia 2-5; middle toe 3-2, claw 
(straight) 07 ; hind toe 1-2 ; bill to gape (straight) 5-4, height at gape 1-2, width across hollow at base of culmen 
<>85. — Male. (Sambbur Lake) Length 30-9 inches ; wing 15-3, expanse 53-3 ; tail 5-1 ; tarsus 4-3 ; bill at front 
along curve 6-2 (Adam). (India : Brit. Mus.) Wing 13'5 inches, bill to gape (straight) 4-7. 
Iris brown, “blood-red in some” (Jerdon)-, bill black; legs and feet black or blackish purple ; bare skin beneath the 
ulna red. 
Breeding-plumage (India : Brit. Mus.). Head and neck bare, the skin black, extending down the hind neck 4 inches 
from the occiput, and on the fore neck 5 inches from the chin. Plumage white, the scapulars and tertials decom- 
posed or with open barbs, lengthened and tinged with dark grey near the tips ; plumes at the lower part of the 
fore neck lengthened. 
Apparently it is only old birds which have the quills pure white ; generally the shafts are black with a portion of the 
tips of the feathers. Mr. Adam instances one with a “narrow black line, about an inch in length, on only one of 
the quills.” In some examples the bare skin at the back of the neck is crossed by red bars ; and other specimens 
have the tertials pure white. 
* The members of the group to which this genus belongs form the subfamily Ibidinse of some authors. The 
present and the following species are the sole representatives of this subfamily in Ceylon. 
