50 NATURAL HISTORY IBirds. 



season without one of these attending it, insomuch, that in 

 Scotland it has become proverbial of an officious attendant. 



The kingsfisher should come in here, according to its order 

 in ornithology, but, though I once saw a specimen which had 

 been drove here, I suppose, by a storm, I not think it is an 

 Orkney bird, or makes us so regular visits as to deserve a 

 place here ; indeed, were it true that Ovid says, of her having 

 seven calm days in the depth of winter for hatching, she could 

 have no such conveniency in these, far from Halcyon climates. 



In the same class we may place the Hoopoe*, which Sir 

 Robert Sibbald -f has placed here. Mr Wallace, from whom 

 I suppose Sir Robert had the account, says, " He saw one 

 " that had a long beak, a large tuft on the head, in the fa- 

 " shion of a crown, with speckled feathers, pleasant to be- 

 " hold, which he believed to be the Upupa ;" but he places 

 it amongst the " exotic fowls, driven in by the wind in time 

 " of a stomi." 



Mr Pennant has given this bird a place in his excellent ' 

 British Zoology, but tells us it visits Britain frequently, though 

 not at stated seasons ; but for being once in Orkney cannot 

 be said to be so naturalised, as to merit a place in an Orkney 

 Fauna. 



Storms, indeed, frequently compel many of the migratory 

 birds to take these islands in their route, but they are almost 

 always half-dead ere they come, or, if in spirits, soon go off 

 again. 



* Vide Pen. Brit. Zool. 195. t Vide Sib. Prod. Nat. Hist. Scot. III. p. 16. 



