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THE WOOD IBIS
TANTALUS LOCULATOR, LINN.
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PLATE CCXVI. Male.
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THIS very remarkable bird, and all others of the same genus that are
known to occur in the United States, are constant residents in some part
of our Southern Districts, although they perform short migrations. A
few of them now and then stray as far as the Middle States, but instances
of this are rare; and I am not aware that any have been seen farther to
the eastward than the southern portions of Maryland, excepting a few
individuals of the Glossy and the White Ibises, which have been procured
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. The Carolinas, Georgia,
the Floridas, Alabama, Lower Louisiana, including Opellousas, and Mississippi,
are the districts to which they resort by preference, and in
which they spend the whole year. With the exception of the Glossy
Ibis, which may be looked upon as a bird of the Mexican territories, and
which usually appears in the Union singly or in pairs, they all live socially
in immense flocks, especially during the breeding season. The country
which they inhabit is doubtless the best suited to their habits; the
vast and numerous swamps, lagoons, bayous, and submersed savannahs
that occur in the lower parts of our Southern States, all abounding with
fishes and reptiles; and the temperature of these countries being congenial
to their constitutions.
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treating of the bird now under your notice, Mr WILLIAM BARTRAM
says, " This solitary bird does not associate in flocks, but is generally seen
alone."11 This was published by WILSON, and every individual who has
since written on the subject, has copied the assertion without probably
having any other reason than that he believed the authors of it to state a
fact. But the habits of this species are entirely at variance with the above
quotation, to which I direct your attention not without a feeling of pain,
being assured that Mr BARTRAM could have made such a statement only
because he had few opportunities of studying the bird in question in its
proper haunts. rjg
The Wood Ibis is rarely met with single, even after the breeding season,
and it is more easy for a person to see an hundred together at any
period of the year, than to meet with one by itself. Nay, I have seen
flocks composed of several thousands, and that there is a natural necessity
for their flocking together I shall explain to you. This species feeds entirely
on fish and aquatic reptiles, of which it destroys an enormous quantity,
in fact more than it eats; for if they have been killing fish for half
an hour and have gorged themselves, they suffer the rest to lie on the
water untouched, when it becomes food for alligators, crows, and vultures,
whenever these animals can lay hold of it. To procure its food, the
Wood Ibis walks through shallow muddy lakes or bayous in numbers.
As soon as they have discovered a place abounding in fish, they dance as
it were all through it, until the water becomes thick with the mud stirred
from the bottom by their feet. The fishes, on rising to the surface, are
instantly struck by the beaks of the Ibises, which, on being deprived of
life, they turn over and so remain. In the course of ten or fifteen minutes,
hundreds of fishes, frogs, young alligators, and water-snakes cover the
surface, and the birds greedily swallow them until they are completely
gorged, after which they walk to the nearest margins, place themselves in
long rows, with their breasts all turned towards the sun, in the manner of
Pelicans and Vultures, and thus remain for an hour or so. When digestion
is partially accomplished, they all take to wing, rise in spiral circlings
to an immense height, and sail about for an hour or more, performing
the most beautiful evolutions that can well be conceived. Their long
necks and legs are stretched out to their full extent, the pure white of
their plumage contrasts beautifully with the jetty black of the tips of their
wings. Now in large circles they seem to ascend toward the upper regions
of the atmosphere ; now, they pitch towards the earth ; and again, gently
rising, they renew their gyrations. Hunger once more induces them to
go in search of food, and, with extended front, the band sails rapidly towards
another lake or bayou.
Mark the place, reader, and follow their course through cane-brake,
cypress-swamp, and tangled wood. Seldom do they return to the same
feeding place on the same day. You have reached the spot, and are
standing on the margin of a dark-watered bayou, the sinuosities of which
lead your eye into a labyrinth ending in complete darkness. The tall
canes bow to each other from the shores ; the majestic trees above them,
all hung with funereal lichen, gently wave in the suffocating atmosphere;
the bullfrog, alarmed, shrinks back into the water; the alligator raises
his head above its surface, probably to see if the birds have arrived, and
VOL. in. i