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Updated: May 27, 2025
Still higher, on gaunt branches of giant cypresses a hundred feet above our heads, great, grotesque Wood Ibises were standing on their nests, or taking flight for their feeding grounds a dozen miles southward. We were now fairly in the midst of an immense bird city, and some of the inhabitants were veritable giants in the bird world. The body of a Wood Ibis is about the size of a Turkey hen.
The common ibises in the ponds near by which usually went in pairs, instead of in flocks like the wood ibis were very tame, and so were the night herons and all the small herons. In flying, the ibises and storks stretch the neck straight in front of them.
As soon as the gate closed there was a great commotion among the waterfowl; the ibises advanced gravely to meet their young mistress, the ducks set up a chorus of welcome, those on the water made for the shore, while those on land followed the ibises with loud quackings.
We observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the numerous minute crustaceae which drift about in these brackish waters.
We must conceive that new features were from time to time added to it, while the old features, curiously enough, were not given up. Here, for example, in the midst of unintelligible lines and pot-hooks, are various pictures that are instantly recognizable as representations of hawks, lions, ibises, and the like.
The ibises, which at first had rejoiced at this unexpected treat, and had lanced them with their long beaks, now alarmed by this mighty invasion fled to the upper regions of the sky, snapping their long bills. Aharon and Mosche triumphed.
He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.
'Why should she be such a little tall, I mean goose, as to hate the Pyramids, Rosa? 'Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton, often nodding her head, and much enjoying the Lumps, 'bore about them, and then you wouldn't ask. Tiresome old burying-grounds! Isises, and Ibises, and Cheopses, and Pharaohses; who cares about them?
If the identification were so perfect that no more differences were observable between the tertiary and the recent shells than between various individuals of either, then Darwin's opponents, who argue the immutability of species from the ibises and cats preserved by the ancient Egyptians being just like those of the present day, could triumphantly add a few hundred thousand years more to the length of the experiment and to the force of their argument.
As we drew nearer, we saw a lake stretching out before us, on the banks of which appeared numberless birds. There were long-legged storks, cranes, pelicans, pink-winged flamingoes, ibises, and similar waterfowl of various descriptions. As we appeared, those nearest to us took to flight, the beautiful flamingoes rising in the air with their long legs stretched out behind them.
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