THE HOOPOE -i:fi 



n-.i-t- <>f colour, are unmistakable. In spite of its seeming weakness, 

 the bird travels at a fair pace, with a certain amount of undulation, 

 and when pursued in the air. Hits about with light, almost butterfly- 

 like strokes of its wings, and is evidently by no means easy to catch. 

 In Palestine, Tristram was inclined to think that it must migrate by 

 night, as he found it generally distributed, without being able to 

 detect any preliminary migratory movements ; but it is clear that on 

 its sea voyages, at any rate, it moves by day. Many birds have 

 already been left on the south side of the Mediterranean to breed in 

 the forests and hills of Northern Africa, and some settle down in most 

 of the larger Mediterranean islands to breed, while others push on 

 across the Continent to their breeding-places. Hardly an olive grove 

 in Southern Europe now but contains a hoopoe or two, and every- 

 where one hears the soft " poo-poo-poo n repeated, now close at 

 hand, now half a mile away. But some birds must still push on, 

 moving quietly onward by short flights into Central Europe, working 

 their way slowly up the river valleys, and haunting willows, water- 

 meadows, and orchards. Stragglers have been known to penetrate 

 within the Arctic Circle and even to Spitsbergen, but the normal 

 breeding range on the Continent does not extend beyond Southern 

 Sweden, and up to about lat 55 N. in Russia. It is, however, by no 

 means confined altogether to low ground, for Mr. Elwes found it quite 

 common in some of the wildest and most desolate valleys of the 

 Himalayas, at heights of from 12,000 to 15,000 feet, and in Southern 

 Tibet Captain Walton records it as common up to mid-October at 

 15,200 feet (Ibis, 1906, p. 241). In Spain, and in many parts of the 

 Balkan Peninsula, it is a very common bird, as well as in South Russia. 

 But common though it is, and by no means shy, except where it has 

 learned by experience to dread the gun, it shows considerable caution, 

 as a rule, in the choice of its breeding-place. Now and then one 

 finds a nest, perhaps in a hollow of a stone wall, quite close to a 

 house, and as the parents become accustomed to the sight of men, 

 they will fly in and out with food within a yard or two of the spectator. 



