38 
GLOSSY IBIS. 
are one foot long, and when closed reach precisely to the tip of the 
tail, which is four and a half inches in length, and even at the tip: 
the first primary is hardly shorter than the third, the second 
longest. The feet are rather slender, and the tarsus much longer 
than the middle toe: their colour is greenish lead, somewhat 
reddish at the joints : tarsus' scutellated, four inches long; the 
naked part of the tibia nearly three inches; the toes are slender, 
the middle without the nail is two and a half, and the hind toe 
one inch long: the nails are long and slender, but truncated and 
of a dark horn colour: the middle one is the longest, and slightly 
curved outwards, dilated on the inner side to a thin edge, which 
is irregularly and broadly pectinated. This character is particu¬ 
larly worthy of remark, inasmuch as none of the genus but this 
exhibit it, and it may be of great use in deciding at once whether 
mummies belong to this species or not, though we regret that no 
one appears ever to have thought of having recourse to it to 
determine this controverted question. 
The adult female is perfectly similar to the male in all except 
size, being very sensibly smaller. 
Under two years of age they resemble the adult, but the 
head and neck are of a much darker colour, the chesnut having 
nothing vivid, but rather verging upon blackish brown, and all 
speckled with small dashes of white disposed longitudinally on the 
margins of the feathers, and disappearing gradually as the bird 
advances in age: the under parts and the thighs are of a blackish 
gray, more or less verging upon chesnut according to age, the back 
acquiring its brilliant colours in the same manner. It is in this 
state that most authors, Brisson especially, have described their 
Numemm viridis, which for a long time usurped the privilege of 
somewhat representing the type of the species. 
The young has these white lines longer and more numerous, 
and the lower parts of a darker blackish gray. 
