, THE HOOPOE. 197 



habits, describe its mode of nesting, and manner of 

 feeding its young, they would do a much greater 

 service to Ornithology by recording the result of 

 their observations than by publishing the details of 

 a wanton destruction. 



That the Hoopoe will breed in this country, if 

 unmolested, is evidenced by the recorded instances 

 in which it has done so where sufficient protection 

 has been afforded it during the nesting season. 

 Montagu states, in his Ornithological Dictionary, 

 that a pair of Hoopoes began a nest in Hampshire, 

 and Latham has described a young Hoopoe which 

 was brought to him in June. A pair one summer 

 frequented Gilbert White's garden at Selborne ; 

 and another pair nested for several years in the 

 grounds of Pennsylvania Castle, Portland (The 

 Naturalist, 1852, p. 82). Jesse, in his Gleanings in 

 Natural History, states 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 

 Chichester ; and according to the observations of 

 Mr. Turner of Sherborne, Dorsetshire, the nest has 

 been taken, on three or four occasions, by the 

 schoolboys, from pollard willows on the banks of 



