I have seen the Erkoom with eighteen young ones; it runs upon the ground much more willingly than it flies, but when it is raised, flies both strong and far. It has a rank smell, and is said to live in Abyssinia upon dead carcases. I never saw it approach any of these; and what convinces me this is untrue, is, that I never saw one of them follow the army, where there was always a general assembly of all the birds of prey in Abyssinia.
It was very easy to see what was its food, by its place of rendezvous, which was in the fields of teff, upon the tops of which are always a number of green beetles, these he strips off by drawing the stalk through his beak, and which operation wears his beak so that it appears to be serrated, and, often as I had occasion to open this bird, I never found in him any thing but the green scarabeus, or beetle. He has a putrid or stinking smell, which I suppose is the reason he has been imagined to feed upon carrion.
The Erkoom builds in large, thick trees, always, if he can, near churches; has a covered nest like that of a magpie, but four times as large as the eagle’s. It places its nest firm upon the trunk, without endeavouring to make it high from the ground; the entry is always on the east side. It would seem that the Indian crow of Bontius is of this kind: it is difficult, however, of belief, that his natural food is nutmegs; for there seems nothing in his structure or inclination, which is walking on the ground, that is necessary or convenient for taking such food.
ABOU HANNES.
The ancient and true name of this bird seems to be lost. The present one is fancifully given from observation of a circumstance of its œconomy; translated, it signifies, Father John, and the reason is, that it appears on St John’s day, the precise time when first the fresh water of the tropical rains is known in Egypt to have mixed with the Nile, and to have made it lighter, sweeter, and more exhaleable in dew, that is in the beginning of the season of the tropical rains, when all water-fowl, that are birds of passage, resort to Ethiopia in great numbers.
Abou Hannes.
London Publish’d Dec.r 1.st 1789. by G. Robinson & Co.
As I have observed this bird has lost its name, so in the history of Egypt and Ethiopia we have lost a bird, once very remarkable, of which now nothing remains but the name, this is the Ibis, to which divine honours were paid, whose bodies were embalmed and preserved with the same care as those of men. There still remain many repositories full of them in Egypt, and appear everywhere in collections in the hands of the curious. Though the manner that these birds are prepared, and caustic ingredients, with which the body is injected, have greatly altered the consistency of their parts, and the colour of their plumage, yet it is from these, viewed and compared deliberately, and at leisure, that I am convinced the Abou Hannes is neither more nor less than the Ibis.