At breeding time these birds assemble in very large companies, and their nesting-places are called heronries or rookeries. The chief rookeries here are in the Riverina, where the great annual overflow of that fine river, the Murray, converts the country into a great series of lakes and swamps. Here water animals live in large numbers, and thousands of birds take advantage of this abundant food supply to nest there in the enormous redgums.
Each bird is the close relative of a similar bird in Europe, so that what is read concerning Herons and Egrets there, applies equally to our members of this widely-distributed family. Eating grasshoppers and other insects in great numbers, they are friends of the farmer and grazier. Destroying yabbies and other burrowing water animals, they are valuable allies of the irrigationist, and it is decidedly bad policy to shoot one.
ORDER XII.—ARDEIFORMES.
F. 50. IBIDIDAE (3), IBISES, 27 sp.—4(2)A., 6(2)O., 3(0)P., 10(8)E., 4(0)Nc., 11(7)Nl.
1
5
112 Australian White Ibis (Black-necked), Sickle-Bill, Ibis molucca, Mol., N.G., A. =vt. Sacred Ibis of Egypt.
Nom. flocks, r. lagoons 30
White; head, upper-neck bare black; back of head and neck barred rose-pink; black bill arched; f., smaller. Insects.
1
1