UPTTPA. 337 



chiefly, I think, according to whether they are fresh or more or 

 less incubated when obtained. When quite fresh, all those that I 

 have seen were of a pale greyish-blue tint, what Dr. Jerdon, I 

 think, calls skimmed-milk colour, but many are of a pale olive- 

 brown or dingy olive-green, and every intermediate shade of colour 

 is observable. As a rule, they have scarcely any gloss at all, and 

 of course are quite devoid of markings. They are decidedly 

 smaller, and, as a rule, more elongated than the eggs of U. epops. 



In length they vary from 0-9 to 1-05 inch, and in breadth from 

 O65 to 0-73 inch ; but the average of fifty eggs measured is 0-97 

 by 0-66 inch. 



Upupa epops, Linn. The European Hoopoe. 



Upupa epops Linn., Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 390 j Hume, Rough Draft 

 N. 8f E. no. 254. 



So far as I know the European Hoopoe, though a common 

 visitor to the plains of India during the cold season, breeds with 

 us only in the Western Himalayas. 



They lay during April and May, and possibly in June also, in 

 hollows of trees, as a rule, but occasionally in holes in the walls of 

 ruined temples. They appear generally to make some little nest, a 

 little grass and a few feathers being placed as a bed for the eggs ; but 

 in a nest that I found in a little ruin in the valley of the Beas, above 

 Minalee, a quantity of soft hair had been added "to the usual com- 

 plement of grass and feathers. 



They lay normally from four to seven eggs, but Mr. Brooks 

 informed me that he took a nest out of a hollow willow at Ramu 

 in Kashmir on the 16th of May, containing ten deeply -incubated 

 eggs. 



From Murree, Colonel C. H. T.Marshall reports : "Two nests 

 in holes in trees. In one instance we watched the cock bringing 

 food to the hen, whom we afterwards caught on the nest. This 

 would go to prove the theory advanced that the Hoopoe, like 

 the Hornbill, remains on her nest all the time until the eggs are 

 hatched. Elevation 7000 feet." 



Dr. Jerdon remarked in the ' Ibis ' : " This Hoopoe breeds 

 very generally in the N.W. Provinces in the verandahs of houses, 

 and I watched one for some days in the house of the late Dr. Scott 

 at Umballa." 



Lieut. H. E. Barnes, writing from Chaman in Afghanistan, 

 says : " The European Hoopoe arrives during March, and com- 

 mences to breed soon after. I have been very unfortunate in 

 procuring eggs, although I have many times found young birds. 

 All the nests I have examined have been in holes in trees, slightly 

 cleared out by the birds, and all having an offensive smell. 



" The only egg I have was obtained in a peculiar manner, but 

 in such a way as to leave no doubt of its identity. An Afghan 

 found a nest containing three eggs, which he accidentally broke ; 

 he caught the parent bird which, strange to say, laid another egg 



VOL. ii. 22 



