168 CERTHIAD.E. 



gotten. It can scarcely be considered a very rare bird, since 

 hardly a season passes but one or more examples are obtained, 

 and there is not a county on our southern or eastern coasts in 

 Avhich this species has not been killed several times. Though 

 a summer visiter from North Africa, and going even to the 

 North of Europe, it seldom makes its appearance in this 

 country till after the breeding season is over ; and the period 

 of the year in which this bird most commonly occurs is in 

 autumn. To this, however, a few exceptions are recorded. 

 Dr. Latham had a young bird sent him on the 10th of May, 

 1786. Montagu mentions that a pair in Hampshire left a 

 nest they had begun ; and Mr. Jesse, in the third volume of 

 his Gleanings in Natural History, says, that " some years 

 ago a pair of Hoopoes built their nest, and hatched their 

 young, in a tree close to the house at Park-end, near Chi- 

 chester," They build constantly in hollow trees, collecting a 

 few grass bents and feathers, upon which from four to six or 

 seven eggs are deposited : these are of a uniform pale laven- 

 der grey, one inch and half a line long, by eight lines in 

 breadth. These birds pass much of their time in the day 

 upon the ground, appearing to prefer low and moist situa- 

 tions near woods, where they search for insects, upon which 

 they principally subsist. I have had two opportunities of 

 examining the stomach of the Hoopoe, when killed in this 

 country, one of which contained the remains of small coleop- 

 terous insects, the other was partly filled with the skins of 

 various caterpillars of two different species. Bechstein, in 

 his Cage Birds, has given an interesting account of the habits 

 of these birds in confinement, and Mr. Blyth has described, 

 in the second volume of the New Series of the Magazine of 

 Natural History, the actions of five or six of these birds, 

 which were alive in London in the year 1838. I am in- 

 debted to Mr. Bartlctt, the preserver of birds in Museum 

 Street, for the opportunity of observing a living specimen, a 



