Ibis

a genus of birds of the family Ardeidae, or, according to some ornithologists, of Scolopacidae, and perhaps to be regarded as a connecting link between them. The bill is long, slender, curved, thick at the base; the point rather obtuse; the upper mandible deeply grooved throughout its length. The face, and generally the greater part of the head, and sometimes even the neck, are destitute of feathers, at least in adult birds. The neck is long. The legs are rather long, naked above the tarsal joint, with three partially united toes in front and one behind; the swings are moderately long; the tail is very short. The Sacred or Egyptian ibis (Ibis religiosa) is an African bird, two feet six inches in length, although the body is little larger than that of a common fowl. It was one of the birds worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, and called by them Hab or Hib, and by the modern Egyptians Abtu-Hesnes (i.e. Father John). It is represented on the monuments as a bird with long beak and legs, and a heart-shaped body, covered with black and white plumage. It was supposed, from the color of its feathers, to symbolize the light and shade of the moon, its body to represent the heart: its legs described a triangle, and with its beak it performed a medical operation; from all which esoterical ideas it was the avatar of the god Thoth or Hermes (q.v.), who escaped in that shape the pursuit of Typhon, as the hawk was that of Ra, or Horus, the sun. Its feathers were supposed to scare, and even kill, the crocodile. It appeared in Egypt at the rise, and disappeared at the inundation of the Nile, and was thought, at that time, to deliver Egypt from the winged and other serpents which came from Arabia in certain narrow passes. As it did not make its nest in Egypt, it was thought to be self-engendering, and to lay eggs for a lunar month. According to some, the basilisk was engendered by it. It was celebrated for its purity, and only drank from the purest water, and the most strict of the priesthood only drank of the pools where it had been seen; besides which, it was fabled to entertain the most invincible love of Egypt, and to die of self-starvation if transported elsewhere. Its flesh was thought to be incorruptible after death, and to kill it was punishable with death. Ibises were kept in the temples, and unmolested in the neighborhood of cities. After death they were mummied, and there is no animal of which so many remains have been found at Thebes, Memphis, Hermopolis Magna, or Eshmun, and at Ibiu or Ibeurn, fourteen miles north of the same place. They are made up into a conical shape, the wings flat, the legs bent back to the breast, the head placed on the left side, and the beak under the tail; were prepared as other mummies, and wrapped up in linen bandages, which are sometimes plaited in patterns externally. At Thebes they are found in linen bandages only; well preserved at Hermopolis in wooden or stone boxes of oblong form, sometimes in form of the bird itself, or the god Thoth; at Memphis, in conical sugar-loaf-shaped red earthenware jars, the tail downwards, the cover of convex form, cemented by lime. There appear to be two sorts of embalmed ibises-a smaller one of the size of a corncrake, very black, and the other black and white-the Ibis Nuenzius, or Ibis religiosa. This last is usually found with its eggs, and sometimes with its insect food, the Pimlelia pilosa, Akis reflexa, and portions of snakes, in the stomach. (Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, 5, 7, 217; Passoloegua, Catalogue Raisone, p. 255; Pettigrew, History of Mummies, p. 205; Horapollo, 1, c. 30,. 36.)