GLOSSY IBIS. 
51 
species having been found in the United States. I was informed that a 
recent specimen of this bird was, likewise in the month of May, presented 
to the Baltimore Museum, and that two individuals were killed in the dis- 
trict of Columbia.” In the sequel Mr. Ord compares it with Dr. Latham’s 
account of the Tantalus Mexicanus of that author, and conjectures that it 
is the same. 
It is not a little curious to see the changes of opinion that have taken 
place within these few years among naturalists who have thought of com- 
paring American and European specimens of the birds which have been 
alleged to be the same in both continents. The Prince of Musignano, for 
example, who has given a figure of the very individual mentioned by Mr. 
Ord, thought at the time when he published the fourth volume of his con- 
tinuation of Wilson’s American Ornithology, that our Glossy Ibis was the 
one described by the older European writers under the name of Ibis Fal- 
cinellus. Now, however, having altered his notions so far as to seem 
desirous of proving that the same species of bird cannot exist on both the 
continents, he has latterly produced it anew under the name of Ibis Ordi. 
This new name I cannot with any degree of propriety adopt. I consider it 
no compliment to the discoverer of a bird to reject the name which he has 
given it, even for the purpose of calling it after himself. 
The Glossy Ibis is of exceedingly rare occurrence in the United States, 
where it appears only at long and irregular intervals, like a wanderer who 
has lost his way. It exists in Mexico, however, in vast numbers. In the 
spring of 1837, I saw flocks of it in Texas ; but even there it is merely a 
summer resident, associating with the White Ibis, along the grassy margins 
of the rivers and bayous, and apparently going to and returning from its 
roosting places in the interior of the country. Its flight resembles that of 
its companion, the White Ibis, and it is probable that it feeds on the same 
kinds of crustaceous animals, and breeds on low bushes in the same great 
associations as that species, but we unfortunately had no opportunity of 
verifying this conjecture. Mr. Nutt all, in his Ornithology of the United 
States and Canada, says that “ a specimen has occasionally been exposed 
for sale in the market of Boston.” 
I have given the figure of a male bird in superb plumage, procured in 
Florida, near a wood-cutter’s cabin, a view of which is also given. 
Ibis Falcinellus, Bonap. Syn., p. 312. 
Bay or Glossy Ibis, Nutt. Man., vol. ii. p. 88. 
Glossy Ibis, Ibis Falcinellus, And. Orn. Biog., vol. iv. p. 608. 
Male, 25, 42 ; wing, 11J 
Rare or accidental in the Middle Atlantic Districts ; more common in 
