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GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA. 
feet. This bird, whose color is a uniform bright scarlet, is found in 
South America and the West Indies. The white ibis, or white 
curlew, whose plumage is pure white, is very common in the South¬ 
ern Atlantic and Gulf States, occasionally straggling as far north 
as New Jersey. Its flesh has a very fishy taste and is rarely eaten 
except by the Indians. 
The glossy ibis, a smaller species, is about twenty-one inches 
long. Its general color is chestnut-brown, with the back and top 
of head metallic green, glossed with purple. It exists in great num¬ 
bers in Mexico and has been found as far north as Massachusetts. 
Of this genus there are about twenty species found in the warmer 
parts of Africa, Asia and South America, one of which is the 
Sacred Ibis of the Egyptians. It is about as large as a domestic 
fowl, and is found throughout Northern Africa. 
REARED IN THE TEMPLES OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 
This bird, which was reared in the temples of ancient Egypt 
and was embalmed, frequents overflowed lands and dry plains and 
feeds on frogs and small aquatic lizards. It is a migratory bird, 
appearing simultaneously with the rise of the Nile and departing as 
the inundation subsides. It is a remarkable fact, that the ibis does 
not visit Egypt regularly any more as of old, breeding in the Soudan. 
As soon as it arrives there it takes possession of its well-selected 
breeding places, from which it undertakes excursions in search of 
prey. It is not afraid of the natives and can often be seen among 
the cattle herds picking up a grasshopper here and a frog dr lizard 
there. Dr. Brehm met, on his travels up the Blue Nile, so many of 
this beautiful bird, that he was able to kill twenty of them within 
two days. The female lays three to four white eggs of the size of 
duck eggs. The bird is easily domesticated and is found in many 
zoological gardens of Europe and America. 
In Egypt the ibis was regarded with great veneration by the 
ancients, who kept them in their temples, and embalmed them after 
their death; thousands of their remains are still found in the burial 
places amid the ruins of ancient Egypt. Various reasons have been 
given for this custom, some saying that the ibis destroyed the 
