GLOSSY IBIS. 
39 
This bird does not appear in its full plumage until the third 
year, and is so different from the adult as to furnish an excuse 
for those who in that state have considered it as a distinct species. 
The bill is brown: the feathers of the head and of the throat are 
dark brownish with a whitish margin, wider in proportion as the 
bird is younger: the breast, belly, vent, under tail-coverts and 
thigh-feathers are grayish brown or slate colour: the lower 
portion of the back, wings, and tail of a somewhat golden green, 
passing into reddish, with but very little gloss in specimens under 
one year old, and richer as they advance in age. The feet are 
wholly blackish. 
No bird ranges more widely over the globe than the Glossy 
Ibis : it has long been known to inhabit Europe, Asia, Oceanica, 
and Africa, where it gained its celebrity. It is now proclaimed 
as American, though we are not able to tell how numerous or 
extended the species may be on this continent. We can hardly 
doubt, however, that it is found along almost all the shores of 
North and South America, though far from common in any of 
these States. From the fact of this bird having been known to 
stray occasionally from Europe to far distant Iceland, we may 
infer that the individuals met with in the United States are 
merely stragglers from that part of the world, just as the Scolopax 
grisea of the same plate is an American bird well known to push 
its accidental migrations as far as the old continent. 
Lest the discovery of the Glossy Ibis on the continent of Ame¬ 
rica should give weight to an erroneous supposition of Vieillot, we 
think proper to mention that the Cayenne Ibis of Latham, Tantalus 
cayanensis, Gmel., represented by Buffon, pi. enl. 820, (Vieillot’s 
own unseen Ibis sylvatica ) is by no means this bird, but a real 
species examined by us, and which must be called Ibis cayanensis. 
Let it come whence it may, the Glossy Ibis is only an occasional 
visitant of the United States, appearing in small flocks during the 
