30 GLOSSY IBIS. 
, mf 
tendon adhering to them, and the joints separate at the least 
touch. Most of these mummies, it must be admitted, are not 
of the species of which we are writing, (and which also is but 
seldom represented hieroglyphically,) but of the white kind, 
which was more venerated, the Ibis religiosa of Cuvier; and some 
authors even deny that a well authenticated Black Ibis has ever 
been unwrapped. Complete birds even of the white species are 
extremely rare. Cuvier obtained the entire skeleton from an 
embalmed subject, and Dr. Pearson was so fortunate as to 
discover the perfect bird in two brought among other mummies 
from Thebes. They have been accurately described in the 
scientific journals of England under the name of true Egyptian 
or Theban Ibis. The Egyptian Ibis of Latham is however 
nothing but the Tantalus Ibis. 
Buffon by means of his mummies was enabled to verify the 
real size of the Ibis, and as he found two bills entire among 
those he examined, he settled the genus to which the sacred bird 
belonged, and stated very correctly that its place was between 
the Stork and the Curlew, where later naturalists have arranged 
it. But it is to be regretted that a preconceived opinion should 
have so blinded him that he could not see the furrows of the upper 
mandible, which do exist in a very eminent degree, as I have 
personally ascertained, notwithstanding his statements to the 
contrary, in making which he must have had before him the bill 
of the Tantalus, which he mistook for the Ibis. These furrows 
it is of the more consequence to note, inasmuch as they form the 
principal discrimination between the genera Tantalus and Ibis , 
and serve to put an end to a controversy to which the sacred Ibis 
has given rise. 
Although every traveller in Egypt has used his exertions to 
collect all the facts relative to a bird which plays such a part in 
the sacred legends of that country, a bird associated with so many 
