338 BRITISH BIRDS. 
bills at an intruder. Although they very closely resemble their parents 
in the colour of their plumage, the young are readily distinguished by 
their short and nearly straight bills, which do not acquire their full length 
until the following year. In the winter the Hoopoe is gregarious to a 
great extent, a dozen or more birds often being seen in a very small area. . 
The head of the Hoopoe in spring plumage is ornamented with a fine 
crest, the feathers of which are buffish chestnut broadly tipped with black, 
which in the hindermost feathers is emphasized by a narrow white sub- 
terminal band; the rest of the upper half of the bird is chestnut-buff, 
darker and browner on the back and paler and pinker on the breast. The 
lower half of the bird is almost as pied as a Spotted Woodpecker: the 
lower back, scapulars, and innermost secondaries are pale buff variegated 
with black; the primaries are black, with a broad subterminal white band 
across them, and the secondaries are black, with four white broad trans- 
verse bands* ; the rump is white, and the tail is black, with a broad white 
transverse band almost in the centre of the middle feathers, and gradually 
approaching the tip until on the outer feathers, especially on the outside 
web, it nearly reaches it. The belly and under tail-coverts are white, 
streaked with dark brown on the flanks. Bill black, paler at the base of 
the lower mandible; legs, feet, and claws dark brown ; irides pale brown. 
The female scarcely differs from the male, but the colours may be slightly 
less pronounced. Autumn plumage differs slightly from spring plumage ; 
the colours are not so rich, the underparts are paler, and the upper parts 
slightly greyer. These differences slightly emphasized are the only cha- 
racteristics of the young in first plumage, except that the beak is only 
about half the length of that of the adult. 
* This is another instance in which there is a striking difference in the pattern of the 
colour of the secondaries and primaries. 
