HOOPOE. 179 



Family UPUPID/E. Genus UPurA. 



HOOPOE. 



Upupa epops, LiiDunis. 



Single Brooded. Laying season, latter half of May and first 

 half of June. 



British breeding area : Were it not for the 

 senseless practice of shooting every rare bird that 

 chances to visit our islands, either on normal passage or 

 otherwise, there can be no doubt that the Hoopoe 

 would, like the Golden Oriole, soon become a regular 

 breeding species in them. Instances of the Hoopoe 

 breeding in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire, 

 Dorset, and Devonshire are on record — a melancholy in- 

 dication of the way this handsome bird has endeavoured, 

 from one end of our southern coast-line to the other, to 

 establish itself and to spread northwards over the British 

 area. 



Breeding habits : I have seen nothing of the 

 breeding habits of the Hoopoe in this country, but in 

 Algeria the bird is common enough, and I met with it 

 in various parts of my wanderings about that charming 

 portion of Africa. The Hoopoe is a summer migrant 

 to Europe, and usually reaches the British Islands in 

 April. Its haunts in Europe are agricultural districts, 

 the outskirts of woods, and in the more open parts of old 

 forest lands ; in Algeria, however, I saw this species in 

 the wildest districts, far up the sterile mountain sides, as 

 well as amongst the luxuriant vegetation of the oases. 

 It probably pairs for life, and the nest is made in a hole 

 in a tree, in a crevice of a rock, or in a hole in a wall. 

 This hole is never excavated by the birds. In China, a 

 hole in an exposed coffin is sometimes tenanted ; whilst 



