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Show 1877.] MR. D. G. ELLIOT ON THE IBIDIN.E. 497 when the ground is frozen and often covered with snow. The young are fully fledged and have the appearance of adult birds by April. They retain their grey plumage throughout the summer, and moult about October. In a male of the year the proventriculus was granulated beneath the outer surface, l£ inch long, *9 at broadest; stomach of an irregular oval, with strong lateral tendons and gummy adnate epithelium, 2f inches long by 2\ broad, full of half-digested little fish and a few small shrimps; intestine white, *2-*4 thick, about 6 feet long, with caeca 3 inches from the anus, the right one about *4 long, the left little more than a pimple; testes small and bluish black, the left twice the size of the right. The flesh cooked was coarse and fishy. An adult male had testes much larger, unequal in size, and ochraceous yellow. The whole of the flesh, fat, cartilage, and bone was saturated with the vermilion tint that appears on the wings and soft external parts of the birds. The trachea was 6^ inches, consisting of a series of rings close together, broad on one side, narrow on the other, until just before reaching the bronchi, when four or five uniform rings occur ending in a projecting semicircle of bone as thick as two of the broad parts of the upper rings ; below this two crescentic bony ridges commenced the short bronchi. The trachea averages *5 inch in breadth, becoming narrower towards its end. The tongue is short, '6 inch, triangular, with a concave papillose base ; the hyoids thick and curved, the first joint 1*4 inch, the second *8 long. The eggs measure from 2 inches in length by 1*25 in breadth to 2*6 by 1*6. They were pale bluish green in colour, and had a rough surface. I have examined the specimens obtained by Pere David at Cho-leang, Province of Tchakiang, and named by him (I. c.) Ibis sinensis ; and I agree with M . Oustalet (I. c.) that they are only the young of the present species,-young of the year, which have not altogether assumed the adult dress, the grey or plumbeous colour still lingering upon the upper portions of the wings, mantle, and neck. The plumage of the adult is a beautiful rosy white. The shafts of the feathers of the wings and tail are pale vermilion, and the webs rose-colour. A long pendent open crest flows from the back of the head ; top of head and face bare of feathers; skin bright red; bill black, its tip vermilion; legs and feet Indian-red; iris vermilion. Total length 31 inches; wings 16 J, tail 6\, bill along culmen 6^, tarsus 3^. Young.-Cheeks and over the eyes covered with downy feathers, rest of face bare, orange-yellow ; general plumage dusky cream-colour, glossed with rose-colour; primaries blackish brown ; legs and feet light brown ; irides light yellowish brown. 12. CERCIBIS OXYCERCA. Ibis oxycerca, Spix, Av. Brasil. (1825) pl. 87, p. 69. Cercibis oxycercus, Wagl. Isis (1832) p. 1232. Hab. Brazil, river Amazons, westward to Bogota. This is a scarce species in collections, and was first described by PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1877, No. XXXII. 32 |