26 TOOPOE. 
note, ‘tzyrr, tzyrr’—a gyrating hissing sound, when alarmed 
or angry. It seems to utter its call with much exertion. 
The nest, built in May, is placed in the hollow of a tree, 
or a crevice of a wall, and is composed of dry stalks of grass, 
leaves, and feathers. 
The eggs vary from four to seven in number, and are of 
a uniform pale bluish grey, faintly speckled with brown. 
Incubation lasts sixteen days. After the young leave the 
nest they assemble in the immediate vicinity, and are long 
and sedulously attended to by their parents. 
Male; weight, about three ounces; length, from eleven inches 
to one foot and half an inch; bill, black, pale reddish brown 
at the base; iris, brown. The crest, the charming ornament 
of this species, is composed of a double row of long feathers, 
the fronts turning towards the side; they are of a rich buff 
colour, the ends white, tipped with velvet black, except those 
on the forehead, which are shorter, and without the white 
patch. Head on the sides, neck behind, and nape, pale buff, 
with a tinge of grey; chin, throat, and breast, pale buff; back, 
reddish buff, with three semicircular bands, bent downwards 
—one white between two black; the lower part white. 
The wings, when expanded, measure one foot seven or eight 
inches across; greater and lesser wing coverts, black, with a 
eross bar of light buff; primaries, black, with a bar of pale 
buff; the first feather is half the length of the second, the 
second a little longer than the eighth, and a little shorter 
than the seventh, the third and sixth equal, and but little 
shorter than the fourth and fifth, which are also equal, and 
the longest in the wing; secondaries and tertiaries, black, with 
four or five narrow bars of white, some of the latter also 
edged and tipped with pale buff, with an oblique stripe of 
the same on the inner web of the last tertial feather. The 
tail, of ten feathers, square at the tip, black, with a well- 
defined semilunar white bar, tending on the sides towards the 
end; upper tail coverts, white at the base, black at the ends; 
under tail coverts, white. Legs, brown, feathered im front 
above the knee, scaled below; toes, brown; claws, horn-colour 
or black, slightly curved. 
The female is paler in colour. The crest is less than in 
the male. Tertiaries without the buff. 
In the young, (which are at first covered with long grey 
down, and the bill very short and straight,) the breast is 
crossed with narrow dusky streaks. 
