422 upupidyE. 



continued to visit that kingdom, tiiougb details of its occur- 

 rence may be wanting.* 



The conspicuous plumage of the Hoopoe, together with its 

 familiarity towards man in countries where it is unmolested, 

 render it an attractive object to travellers.! When no danger 

 threatens the cock sits on a bough, a stump or a wall, 

 uttering his simple love-song hoo, lioo, hoo,l puffing out his 

 throat and striking his bill against his perch at each note ; or 

 he parades the ground with a stately walk, his head bowing 

 at every step, and his crest alternately lifted and lowered, in 

 a slow and graceful manner. Nor does the bird wholly drop 

 this deportment when engaged in feeding, though that occu- 

 pation quickens its pace and often leads it to the most 

 undignified spots in search of the worms or grubs there to 

 be found abundantly, either by probing the soil or by stamp- 

 ing on the earth and so making them come to the surface. 

 As each animal appears it is seized — if it be small, it is 

 jerked into the air, adroitly caught again and gulped down ; 

 if it be large, it is beaten against the ground, and then, by a 

 sudden thro wing-back of the head, made to fall into the 

 open gape — but the bill is always raised aloft in the act of 

 swallowing. Though the bird generally seeks its living amid 

 the most obscene refuse, there are places in which it finds 

 food of a less impure origin, as Mr. Greenhow (Mag. Nat. 



* It seems to have appeared most frequently in Wexford, Waterford, and Cork, 

 but occasionally in Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Galvvay and Antrim. 



-|- When the former editions of this work appeared the habits of this bird, as 

 well as of the two whose history next follow, had been studied by but few of our 

 countrymen, and the Author had to write from very insufficient sources of infor- 

 mation. A great change has since taken place in this respect, and so far as 

 general habits can be observed theirs have been by many excellent field-workers 

 in many diflferent lands. The wealth of materials ofiered to a compiler is now 

 very great, as regards all three species, and it can hardly be doubted that the 

 impulse given by these earlier had much to do with its acquisition. 



t Sometimes syllabled hooj:), hoop, hoop or hoo, poo, poo. The sound seems to 

 be produced by expelling the air from the dilatable cesophagus. From this cry 

 comes the name which the bird bears in many widely-differing languages. The 

 French Hupe, or as now commonly written Hxippe, is often thought to refer to 

 the tuft of feathers which is so characteristic of the species ; but according to 

 M. Littre (Diet, de la Langue Fran^. i. p. 2067) is but a secondary meaning of 

 the word, and the tuft is named from the bird, not the bird from the tuft. 



