Essay on the Theory of the Earth

by baron Georges Cuvier

It was founded on the idea, that the ibis was essentially a bird that destroyed serpents, and upon this very natural conclusion, that, in order to enable it to devour these reptiles, it was necessary for it to have a sharp beak, more or less resembling that of the heron. This idea is even the only good objection that can be made against the identity of our bird to the ibis. How, it is urged, could a bird with a weak bill, a curlew, devour those dangerous reptiles?

It may be replied, that positive proofs, such descriptions, figures, and mummies, ought always to preponderate over accounts of habits too often imagined without any other motive than to justify the different worships rendered to animals. It might be added, the serpents from which the ibis delivered Egypt, are represented to us as very venomous, but not as very large. I have even obtained a direct proof that the birds preserved as mummies, which have had a beak precisely similar to that of our bird, were true serpent eaters; for I found in one of their mummies the still undigested remains of the skin and scales of serpents, which I have deposited in our anatomical galleries.

But, at the present day, M. Savigny, who has observed, in a living state, and more than once dissected our white numenius, the bird which every thing concurs to prove to have been the ibis, asserts that it only eats worms, fresh water shells, and other small animals of that sort. Supposing this fact to have no exception, all that can be concluded from it is, that the Egyptians, as has happened more than once to them and others, had invented a false reason for an absurd worship. It is true that Herodotus says, he saw, in a place on the borders of the desert[370], near Buto, a narrow gorge, in which a multitude of bones were heaped up, which he was informed were remains of winged serpents, that were seeking to penetrate into Egypt in spring, and that the ibises had arrested their passage. But he does not say that he had witnessed their combats, or that he had seen those winged serpents in their entire state. The whole of his testimony, therefore, reduces itself to this, that he had observed a heap of bones, which may very well have been those of the multitude of reptiles and other animals which the inundation destroyed every year, and whose bodies it would naturally carry to the places where it was stopped, to the borders of the desert, and which must by preference have accumulated in a narrow gorge.

However, it is equally from this idea of the combats of the ibis with serpents, that Cicero gives that bird a horny and strong beak[371]. Having never been in Egypt, he imagined that this must have been the case by mere analogy.

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.