[1] It has been said to occur occasionally in Europe (Greece and southern Russia).
[2] E. C. Taylor remarked (Ibis, 1859, p. 51), that the buff-backed heron, Ardea bubulcus, was made by the tourists’ dragomans to do duty for the “sacred ibis,” and this seems to be no novel practice, since by it, or something like it, Hasselqvist was misled, and through him Linnaeus.
[3] The ibis has more than once nested in the gardens of the Zoological Society in London, and even reared its young there.
[4] For some account of these may be consulted Dr Reichenow’s paper in Journ. für Ornithologie (1877), pp. 143-156; Elliot’s in Proc. Zool. Society (1877), pp. 477-510; and that of Oustalet in Nouv. Arch. du Muséum, ser. 2, vols. i. pp. 167-184.
[5] It is a popular error—especially among painters—that this bird was the sacred ibis of the Egyptians.
[6] The name “Ibis” was selected as the title of an ornithological magazine, frequently referred to in this and other articles, which made its first appearance in 1859.
IBLIS, or Eblis, in Moslem mythology the counterpart of the Christian and Jewish devil. He figures oftener in the Koran under the name Shaitan, Iblis being mentioned 11 times, whereas Shaitan appears in 87 passages. He is chief of the spirits of evil, and his personality is adapted to that of his Jewish prototype. Iblis rebelled against Allah and was expelled from Paradise. The Koranic legend is that his fall was a punishment for his refusal to worship Adam. Condemned to death he was afterwards respited till the judgment day (Koran vii. 13).
See Gustav Weil, The Bible, the Koran and the Talmud (London, 1846).