64 THE BIRDS OF DEVONSHIRE. 



Family Upupid^. 

 HOOPOE. — Upupa epops, Linn. 

 An ireegular spring and autumn visitant, probably 

 of annual occurrence in the County at the seasons 

 of migration. It has occurred also at Midsummer, 

 e.g. a specimen killed near Exeter, July 2nd, 1820, 

 still preserved in the Albert Memorial Museum. As 

 instances of spring occurrences, the following may 

 be cited ; one shot at Torquay, April 1851 ; another 

 obtamed at Plymouth, May 1871 ; two killed at 

 Ivy bridge, April 10th, 1872 ; a fifth procured at 

 Plymouth, April 19th, 1883. This list might be 

 greatly extended. Mr. Dickinson, for example, 

 observed the arrival of a Hoopoe on the coast at 

 Torcross, one rough day in April, 1888. "It came 

 from a Southerly direction, flying along the beach, 

 and alighted about fifty yards from me, when it 

 erected its crest and walked about for a few minutes. 

 It then flew inland " (in lit. March 1st 1890). 

 Mr. Cecil Smith reports a bird killed at Moreton ; half 

 a dozen were obtained in the Kingsbridge district 

 alone, between 1840 and 1847. Mr. H. Nicholls has 

 two, killed in September; the Rev. J. Pitt sends me 

 word of a Hoopoe which he saw upon his lawn at 

 Torquay, August 26th, 1888 ; Mr. H. A. Drew shot 

 another in September 1889, when trying a mangold 

 field near Exeter, for Partridges. Pol wele speaks of 

 the Hoopoe as well-known to Devonshire Naturalists 

 at the end of the last century, and even cites the 

 occurrence of a single bird in the month of December. 



