202 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



them as have contrived to escape destruction, begin 

 to move southwards for the winter, and, passing 

 gradually down to the Mediterranean, are observed 

 for some days about the groves and olive-gardens 

 near the sea before they finally cross over. In this 

 way they return to their winter haunts about the 

 end of August or beginning of September. Occa- 

 sionally a Hoopoe has been observed in winter in 

 the British Islands, but so rarely as to make the 

 occurrence worthy of note in some one or other of 

 the Natural History journals. Charlton, in his 

 Onomasticon Zoicon (1668), gives a life-size en- 

 graving (p. 92) of a Hoopoe killed near London in 

 the winter of 1666 ; and Dr. Smith, in his History of 

 Waterford (1774), records another which was shot 

 upon the ruins of the old church of Stradbally, 

 during the great frost of 1739. According to the 

 Rev. A. Matthews (Zoologist, 1839, p. 2598), a 

 Hoopoe was killed near Oxford in February 1838, 

 and the late Sir William Jardine informed us that 

 two were shot in Dumfriesshire in the winter of 

 1870-71. 



