This first individual came from the collection of the Stadtholder, and its native country was unknown. The late M. Desmoulins, assistant naturalist to the Museum, who had seen two others, asserted that they came from Senegal; one of them must even have been brought by M. Geoffroy de Villeneuve: but we shall see, as we proceed, that Bruce[353] found this species in Abyssinia, where it was named _Abou-Hannes_ (Father John); and that M. Savigny saw it in abundance in Lower Egypt, where it was called _Abou-Mengel_ (Father of the Sickle). It is probable that the moderns will give no credit to the assertion of the ancients, that the ibis never left Egypt without perishing[354]. This assertion would, besides, be as contrary to the Tantalus Ibis as to our common Curlew; for the individuals which we have in Europe came from Senegal. It was from thence that M. Geoffroy de Villeneuve had brought the individual in the Museum of Natural History. It is even much rarer in Egypt than our curlew; for, since Perrault, nobody mentions having seen it there, or having received it from that country. An individual without the reddish tint, but in other respects perfectly similar to the first, was brought home by M. de Labillardiere, in his voyage to Australasia made along with M. d’Entrecasteux. We afterwards learned, that, when young, these birds have the head and neck furnished with feathers in the part which, as they advance in age, is to become bare; and that the scapulars are less elongated, and of a paler and duller black. It is in this state that one was brought to us from Australasia by the late Peron, which, in other respects, differs from ours, and from that of M. Labillardiere, only in having some black markings on the alula and first large coverts, and in which the head and upper part of the neck are covered with blackish feathers. It was also a youngish individual which M. Savigny brought from Egypt, and which is figured in his memoir upon the Ibis, Plate I.; and in the great work on Egypt, under the head Birds, Pl. VII. The feathers of the head and back part of the neck are rather grey than black; those of the fore part of the neck are white. Lastly, Bruce’s figure (Atlas, Plate XXXV.) is also taken from a young individual observed in Abyssinia, and almost similar to that of M. Savigny. We have received from Pondicherry, by M. Leschenault, an individual similar to that of Peron, but in which, the head only, and a small part of the back of the neck, are furnished with blackish feathers; all the rest is covered with white feathers. But it is not the less certain, that all these birds have the head and the neck bare when they are full grown.