144 BOMBAY DUCKS 



trunk of an old tree, in a hole in the wall of a house 

 under the eaves, or in a hole in a bank. The entrance 

 to the nest is often so small that it seems impossible 

 that a hoopoe could squeeze through it. 



But it is the feathers that make a bird ; take away 

 these, and what remains is but a fraction of the original. 

 A sparrow will pass with the utmost ease through an 

 aperture which is scarcely larger than a wedding ring. 

 A hoopoe's nest is an exceedingly unsavoury affair. 

 Any sanitary officer would unhesitatingly condemn it 

 as totally unfit for habitation ; but birds, like natives of 

 this country, seem able to thrive in spots so odoriferous 

 as to paralyse European olfactory nerves ! The nest is 

 just a bundle of rags, feathers, and rubbish, and has no 

 distinctive shape or form. 



Mr. William Jesse states that he once came across a 

 hoopoe's nest into the structure of which a dead hoopoe 

 had been worked. This is surely practising economy 

 with a vengeance. Pallas states that he found a 

 hoopoe's nest "within the exposed and barely decom- 

 posed thorax of a human body, with seven young birds 

 just ready to fly, which defended themselves by a most 

 foetid fluid." It is in the face of facts such as these 

 that I find it difficult to accept the theory of sexual 

 selection, according to which the beautiful plumage and 

 the magnificent songs of birds are due to the aesthetic 

 tastes of the females. 



Books on Indian natural history state that the nesting 

 season of the hoopoe is from February to May. These 

 limits, however, must be considerably extended. Last 

 January two hoopoes brought up a family in an old 



