GLOSSY IBIS. 
31 
of the wonders of antiquity, yet it was for a long period a question 
among naturalists and scholars to what species the name of Ibis 
was properly to be applied, As, however, contrary to the general 
practice of the ancients, the description of the bird did exist, and 
even a representation, tolerably good, among their sculptured 
hieroglyphics, it could only be because it was supposed that 
divine honours must have been the reward of signal services that 
any dispute could ever arise on the subject. A sacred bird must 
of course, it was concluded, be a great destroyer of venomous 
animals, which the timid Ibis is not; hence the misapplication of 
the name. To such an extent did this idea prevail, and predo¬ 
minate over all others, that Buffon, who could only feel contempt 
for the idle tales related of the Ibis, so involved their true history 
as to attribute to them the most violent antipathy to serpents, on 
which he supposed they fed, and destroyed them by all possible 
means, and assigns to them the habits of a species of Vulture. 
Others maintained, notwithstanding its long and falcate bill, that 
it was in fact a Vulture, which was indeed the most natural 
conclusion after they had begun by giving it such habits. Cuvier 
himself, who cleared up and rectified every thing else in relation 
to the Ibis, because he found in a mummy some skins and scales 
of serpents, most probably embalmed as companions, which was 
frequently done with different kinds of animals, declared it a true 
snake-eater. 
Two different kinds of Ibis were known to the ancients, and 
looked upon by the Egyptians as sacred; the White, common 
throughout Egypt, and the Black, which was said to be found 
only in a peculiar district. It is the latter of which we are now 
to treat, a bird long known to, but not recognized by naturalists; 
whilst the white was only rediscovered, in later times, by the 
courageous Abyssinian traveller Bruce, who first among the 
moderns obtained correct notions respecting it. Bruce’s Ibis 
