449 
Note on the Breeding of the Sacred Ibis. 
from that bird. Not only is the general bulk of Osculatia more 
slender than that of Geotrygon, but its tarsi are much longer 
in proportion to its size^ the tail is much shorter^ and the 
outer primaries much reduced in width towards the end, 
instead of each being a broad feather with a uniformly curved 
edge to the inner web. All the members of Geotrygon have 
uniformly coloured tails; and in having ashy tips to its rec- 
trices Osculatia approaches Leptoptila. Indeed it seems, as 
Bonaparte says, to occupy an intermediate position between 
Leptoptila and Geotrygon. 
Bonaparte^s plate does but scant justice to the extreme 
beauty of 0. sapphirina. This and the bird now described 
are by far the most lovely of South-American Pigeons. The 
head of O. sapphirina is white on the forehead, which colour 
gradually shades into grey on the occiput, which again passes 
into metallic green towards the nape, and then to bronze on 
the hind neck and upper back. As already stated, O. pur- 
purata has the forehead white, the top of the h^ad and nape 
being of a very dark rich purple. 
XXXVI.— Note on the Breeding of the Sacred Ibis in the Zoo¬ 
logical Society's Gardens. By P. L. Sclater. 
(Plate XII.) 
The Sacred Ibis being naturally a bird of much interest to 
the readers of this Journal, some notes on the breeding of 
this species, concerning which few details* * appear to have 
been hitherto recorded f, may not be unacceptable. 
The Sacred Ibis {Ibis mthiopica) is a bird which does well 
* Heuglin (Orn. N.O.-Afr. ii. pp. 11, 38) speaks of the breeding-places 
of this bird on the flooded islands and river-hanks of the Eastern Soudan, 
and correctly describes the eggs. He was not himself able to ascend to 
the nests, which are placed on high trees in large colonies. 
t In our /Nomenclator’ Mr. Salvin and I (following Vieillot) have 
used Ibis for the American group of 1. alba and I. rubra. But Ibis 
was applied by Savigny in 1810 to the Sacred Ibis, before Vieillot used 
it for the former group, for which, consequently, Eudocimus of Wagler is 
the correct term. Cf. Elliot, P. Z. S. 1877, p. 482. 
