182 Dr. J. Murie on the Upupidse. 



and studied carefully the habits of the bird in question, and 

 brings together within a short compass much information, 

 quoting Temminck, Bechstein, the Bishop of Norwich, Smith, 

 Selby, Buffon, and the Earl of Derby. To peculiarities and 

 inferences from habits I shall again take occasion to refer. 



The most original researches of Nitzsch* mark an epoch 

 in bird-lore ; and one never turns over a page of his investi- 

 gations into plumage without feeling his debtor. He refers 

 three genera to his family Lipoglossae, viz. Buceros, Upupa, 

 and Alcedo. These agree in the absence of an after-shaft on 

 the contour-feathers, and in the feathered tip of the oil- 

 gland, but differ in tract-distribution and in other characters 

 of plumage. Ten rectrices connect the two former ; twelve dis- 

 tinguish the latter, as does a dense downy covering of the inte- 

 gument. The feather- tracts in Upupa are narrow, resembling 

 Galbula in this respect ; the dorsal tract is uninterrupted, but, 

 dividing into two limbs, encloses an elliptical spinal space ; the 

 neck below has posteriorly furcate lines with broader pec- 

 toral offshoots ; the main lines abdominally run back to near 

 the anus. Remiges 20, the 1st small, the 2nd equal to the 7th, 

 3rd, 4th, and 5th longest. The oil-gland is peculiar and com- 

 posed of two halves. In the $ , at the breeding-season, and 

 in the nestlings a disagreeably odoured blackish fluid obtains 

 in the gland. There is a broad snow-white skin at the angle 

 of the mouth in the young, in which respect they resemble the 

 Passerinse and not the Picariae. He observes of U. africana and 

 U. erythrorhyncha (=Irrisor) that, except that the former pos- 

 sesses 19 remiges, the 4th, 5th, and 6th longest, the pterylo- 

 graphic characters coincide with those of U. epops. 



The Hoopoe, in the eyes of Nitzsch, seems to have been a more 

 than usually interesting form ; for he worked out its internal 

 anatomy with some care in a memoir, which, after his demise, 

 Giebelf wisely gave to the world. Anatomical work by such 



* 'Pterylographie,' the English edition of which is that at my com- 

 mand : Ray Soc. ] 867. 



t Zeitschrift f. d. ges. Naturwiss. Halle, 1857, Band x. p. 236. In 

 vol. xi. (pi. i. tig. 34) of the same publication Giebel gives an outline of 

 the Hoopoe's tongue in comparison with other forms. 



