I am aware that Strabo says somewhere, that the ibis resembles the stork in form and size[372], and that this author ought to have known it well, since he asserts that in his time the streets and cross-ways of Alexandria were so filled with them, that they proved a great inconvenience; but he must have spoken of it from memory. His testimony cannot be received when he contradicts all the rest, and especially when the bird itself is there to refute him. In like manner, I shall not trouble myself about the passage where Ælian[373] relates, according to the Egyptian embalmers, that the intestines of the ibis are eighty-six cubits long. The Egyptian priests of all classes have been guilty of so many extravagancies with regard to Natural History, that no great importance can be attributed to what one of their lowest classes might aver. An objection might still be drawn against my opinion from the long attenuated and black feathers which cover the rump of our bird, and of which some traces also are seen in Bruce’s figure of the Abou-Hannes. The ancients, it might be said, do not speak of them in their descriptions, and their figures do not exhibit them. But I have more on my side, in respect to this matter, than a written testimony or a figured representation. I have found precisely the same feathers in one of the Saccara mummies; I kept them carefully as being at once a singular monument of antiquity and a peremptory proof of the identity of species. These feathers having an uncommon form, and not occurring, I believe, in any other curlew, leave, in fact, no doubt respecting the accuracy of my opinion. I conclude this memoir with a view of its results: 1. The Tantalus Ibis of Linnæus ought to constitute a separate genus, along with the _Tantalus Loculator_. Their character would be: _Rostrum læve, validum, arcuatum, apice utrinque emarginatum_. 2. The other Tantali of the last editions should form a genus with the common curlews, to which the name of _Numenius_ might be given. The character of the genus would be: _Rostrum teres, gracile, arcuatum, apice mutico_. For the special character of the subgenus of the Ibises, there should be added: _Sulco laterali per totam longitudinem exarato_. 3. The white ibis of the ancients is not the ibis of Perrault and Buffon, which is a _Tantalus_; nor the ibis of Hasselquist, which is an _Ardea_; nor the ibis of Maillet, which is a _Vulture_; but it is a bird of the genus Numenius, and of the sub-genus Ibis, which has hitherto been described and figured only by Bruce, under the name of _Abou-Hannes_. I give it the name of NUMENIUS IBIS, _albus, capite et collo adulti nudis, remigum apicibus, rostro et pedibus nigris, remigibus secondariis elongatis nigro-violaceis_. 4. The black ibis of the ancients is probably the bird which we know in Europe under the name of Green Curlew, or the _Scolopax Falcinellus_ of Linnæus. It also belongs to the genus Numenius, and to the sub-genus Ibis.