174 WHITE IBIS.
easily breaks with its bill; the interior, which is flat, being finished with
leaves of the cane and some other plants. The bird breeds only once in
the year, and the full number of its eggs is three. They measure two
inches and a quarter in length, with a diameter of one inch and fiveeighths,
are rough to the touch, although not granulated, of a dull white
colour, blotched with pale yellow, and irregularly spotted with deep reddishbrown.
They afford excellent eating, although when boiled they do not look
inviting, the white resembling a livid-coloured jelly, and the yolk being of a
reddish-orange, the former wonderfully transparent, instead of being opaque
like that of most other birds. The eggs are deposited from the 10th of April
to the 1st of May, and incubation is general by the 10th of the latter month.
The young birds, which are at first covered with thick down of a dark
grey colour, are fed by regurgitation. They take about five weeks to be
able to fly, although they leave the nest at the end of three weeks, and
stand on the branches, or on the ground, waiting the arrival of their parents
with food, which consists principally of small fiddler crabs and crayfish.
On some occasions, I have found them at this age miles away from
the breeding-places, and in this state they are easily caught. As soon as
the young are able to provide for themselves, the old birds leave them,
and the different individuals are then seen searching for food apart.
While nestling or in the act of incubating, these Ibises are extremely gentle
and unwary/ unless they may have been much disturbed, for they almost
allow you to touch them on the nest. The females are silent all the
while, but the males evince their displeasure by uttering sounds which
greatly resemble those of the White-headed Pigeon, and which may be
imitated by the syllables crooh, croo, croo. The report of a gun scarcely
alarms them at first, although at all other periods these birds are shy and
vigilant in the highest degree.
The change in the colouring of the bill, legs, and feet of this bird,
that takes place in the breeding-season, is worthy of remark, the bill being
then of a deep orange-red, and the legs and feet of a red nearly
amounting to carmine. The males at this season have the gular pouch
of a rich orange colour, and somewhat resembling in shape that of the
Frigate Pelican, although proportionally less. During winter, these parts
are of a dull flesh colour. The irides also lose much of their clear blue,
and resume in some degree the umber colour of the young birds. I am
thus particular in these matters, because it is doubtful if any one else has
ever paid attention to them.
WHITE IBIS. 175
While breeding, the White Ibises go to a great distance in search of
food for their young, flying in flocks of several hundreds. Their excursions
take place at particular periods, determined by the decline of the tides,
when all the birds that are not sitting go off, perhaps twenty or thirty
miles, to the great mud flats, where they collect abundance of food, with
which they return the moment the tide begins to flow. As the birds of
this genus feed by night as well as by day, the White Ibis attends the
tides at whatever hour they may be. Some of those which bred on Sandy
Key would go to the keys next the Atlantic, more than forty miles distant,
while others made for the Ever Glades; but they never went off
singly. They rose with common accord from the breeding-ground, forming
themselves into long lines, often a mile in extent, and soon disappeared
from view. Soon after the turn of the tide we saw them approaching
in the same order. Not a note could you have heard on those occasions;
yet if you disturb them when far from their nests, they utter loud hoarse
cries resembling the syllables hunk, hunk, hunk, either while on the ground
or as they fly off.
The flight of the White Ibis is rapid and protracted. Like all other
species of the genus, these birds pass through the air with alternate flappings
and sailings; and I have thought that the use of either mode depended
upon the leader of the flock, for, with the most perfect regularity,
each individual follows the motion of that preceding it, so that a constant
appearance of regular undulations is produced through the whole line.
If one is shot at this time, the whole line is immediately broken up, and for
a few minutes all is disorder; but as they continue their course, they
soon resume their former arrangement. The wounded bird never attempts
to bite or to defend itself in any manner, although, if only winged,
it runs off with more speed than is pleasant to its pursuer.
At other times the White Ibis, like the Red and the Wood Ibises,
rises to an immense height in the air, where it performs beautiful evolutions.
After they have thus, as it were, amused themselves for some
time, they glide down with astonishing speed, and alight either on trees
or on the ground. Should the sun be shining, they appear in their full
beauty, and the glossy black tips of their wings form a fine contrast with
the yellowish-white of the rest of their plumage.
This species is as fond of resorting to the ponds, bayous, or lakes that
are met with in the woods, as the Wood Ibis itself. I have found it