36 Mr. C. F. M. Swynnerton on 



interesting considerations arising out of the experiments, I 

 will deal with in my concluding remarks. 



Irrisor erythrorhynchus (Lath.). 



1909, Jan. 9. — Three Wood-Hoopoes of this species were 

 brought to me to-day by Isitiki. He had just taken all 

 three roosting together in a hole in a large Mutsatsa-tree 

 {Bracliystegia randii) ten or eleven feet from the ground. 

 He had had to enlarge the hole with his axe in order to 

 insert his hand. 



Now, all three birds had the red bill, though it was 

 perfectly obvious, from their mutual behaviour, that at least 

 one of them was the young of one of the others. This \vas 

 at once interesting, for it suggested a date by which the 

 red bill is assumed (the young bird being unlikely to date 

 from before the previous breeding-season), and at the same 

 time showed that the young remain with their parents and 

 are still, to some extent, under parental guidance in matters 

 of food-choice, &c. [a later incident will illustrate this well], 

 for, at any rate, close on a year after birth. 



The birds were rather shy (as was natural), but, with a 

 little timidity, accepted food from me at once (the large 

 dull-coloured Noctuid moth, SpJdngomorplia chlorea, and, 

 rather less readily, grasshoppers). Not only so, but they 

 thank me (as I judge) for what I give them, in the most 

 quaint and fascinating manner. Accepting each insect in 

 the point of the bill, the bird rises up and down, bill held 

 vertically upwards, tail dragging backwards and forwards 

 on the floor of the cage (for the birds, even when using the 

 perches, still descend at my approach) in the quaintest of 

 oft-repeated bows, and only after this will it jerk the food 

 into" the back of its throat and swallow it. It will swallow 

 it, that is, if it has not already been taken from it by one of 

 its companions I [That the birds should have been too 

 friendly at once is to be regarded, I think, as correlated 

 with the fact that they are probably highly disliked by 

 enemies. At any rate, such bird-eating animals as I have 



