— 112 — 



dead bird — probably the male -- and tried to move her with 

 his bill, and shortly 5 or 6 of them ran, or rather hopped, around 

 the fallen female, screaming noisily and now and again poking 

 her with their beaks. 



On the 22 nd July I found a nest in an old decayed tree, 

 about 5 meters from the ground. It was built like the nest of 

 a wood-pecker, and the entrance was very small. The old birds 

 flew "laughing" around the tree, thus betraying the abode. 



In the hole sat an almost full-grown young bird, which 

 was fed by the parents. These were, as always, not at all shy, 

 but sat calmly watching me and were not disturbed in their 

 care of the young one by my presence. As soon as one of the 

 parents came with food or from a distance announced its arrival 

 by means of its particularly noisy cry, the young bird ( — for they 

 had only one) flew into the hollow of the tree and placed him- 

 self in the opening of the nest, croaking and shrieking and 

 suffered itself to be fed, but when this was done and the old 

 ones had left him, he flew out of the nest and perched on an 

 adjacent bough. When he then heard one of the parent birds 

 approaching he swiftly slunk into the nest and accepted the 

 food — so to say in the very door-way. This was repeated 

 continually and in all probability the meaning of these tactics 

 was to give the old birds the idea that he was helpless and 

 not yet able to look after himself. 



When I climbed up to the nest in order to have a look 

 at it I smelt that disagreeable moschus-stench which always 

 characterises these birds. One frequently sees statements that the 

 hoopoes and their nest smell very badly because of the unclean- 

 liness of the birds. But this is not quite correct, for the stench 

 is not caused by the excrements, but arises from the fetid 

 secretion of the rump-gland. I have examined about 20 indivi- 

 duals of this bird and from most of them dissected this Glandula 

 uroppgii, which in these birds is also enormously large and of a 

 peculiar construction, and found that the viscid dark-brown 

 secretion from the gland gives this strongly negative sensation 

 of smell. 



Why just these wood-hoopoes have such a powerful rump- 

 gland, which secretes this fetid secretion, is not easy to decide. 

 In most cases the secretion, with which the birds smear their 

 feathers, should be of importance to protect them against wet 

 and lost of heat, but might not, this unpleasant smell that the 

 birds emit also protect them to a certain extent from attack by 

 enemies? 



In the large series of skins which I have of this race there 

 are great individual variations. Lonnberg (Birds coll. by 

 the Swed. Zool. Exp. to B. E. A., 1911, p. 76—77) has already 

 pointed out that he has found the same and he classifies all his 

 varieties as "individual aberrations of 1. jacJcsoni'\ 



