768 



HOOPOE. 



and we find in the hoopoe very nearly the greatest 

 advantage of this proportion. And when we advert 

 to the habits of the bird, we cannot fail in being 

 struck with the beauty of this adaptation. It is 

 only for transport from place to place that the 

 hoopoes use their wings ; for they feed standing or 

 perching. In transporting themselves, they have two 

 species of flight : the one consisting of short jour- 

 neys over their feeding grounds, when the character 

 of the season induces them to be resident there ; and 

 the other, migration flight, in the course of which 

 they are discursive, and often pass over long distances. 

 The wings are equally adapted for both styles. Their 

 breadth, their roundness, and the co-operation of the 

 powerful fan-shaped tail enable the birds to get up 

 and down with the greatest ease upon their short ex- 

 cursions ; while the general power of the wings is 

 equally serviceable on those longer flights which the 

 variation of the seasons render necessary. 



The hoopoes are inhabitants of the banks of rivers, 

 chiefly of those rivers which are alternately flooded 

 and low, from the alternation of rain and drought. 

 There they feed upon beetles, and other ground in- 

 sects, and on the spawn of fishes and reptiles. The 

 number of insects which they capture is very great ; 

 so that they render no unimportant services to those 

 countries which they frequent, from their activity j 

 they are necessarily voracious feeders, and their 

 nests are somewhat rank with the remains of their 

 abundant food, as is the case with the bee-eaters, the 

 kingfishers, and most of those birds of powerful wing 

 and frequent flight which haunt the margins of the 

 rivers. As is the case with most, if not all of the 

 section, the hoopoes are very handsome birds, fine in 

 their forms and graceful in their motions. There are 

 only two species of them, one of which ranges for a 

 considerable extent over the tropical and northern 

 parts of the eastern hemisphere, over the southern 

 parts of the same, we believe principally confined to 

 Africa, though it also occurs in the south of Asia. 



COMMON HOOPOE (U. epops) is a very beautiful 

 bird, measuring about a foot in length, and a foot and 

 a half in the stretch of the wings, and weighing about 

 three ounces. On the upper part it is of a rust colour, 

 or rather of a vinous red, with the wings and tail 

 black, crossed with two white bands on the wing- 

 coverts, and four on the quills ; the tail is crossed 

 by a crescent-shaped bar of white ; and the crest- 

 feathers, which are oranse, tipped with black, formed 

 of two rows, and capable of being erected at the plea- 

 sure of the bird, give the bird a handsome appear- 

 ance ; the head, neck, and breast, are brownish red, 

 and the rest of the under parts are whitish, streaked 

 with brown. . These birds are very discursive with 

 the seasons ; they chiefly winter in Africa, at least 

 in the European longitudes, while in the eastern part 

 they find their way southward to India. In the south 

 of Europe they appear in considerable numbers, 

 generally in small flocks, which arrive in the extreme 

 south about the month of March, but they do not 

 make their way to the middle latitudes until the end 

 of the spring, and they retire again at the close of 

 summer. In Britain they appear only as occasional 

 stragglers, and, from the season at which some of 

 them have been obtained, one would be led to sup- 

 pose that they are strays, who have lost the proper 

 line of migration, and so cannot find their way back 

 again to the south. Within these few years one was 

 shot in Cornwall in the month of December, which 



is more than three months later than the time when 

 the regular migrants depart from central Europe. 

 Their straggling into this country bears some resent 

 blance to that of the bee-eaters, pratincoles, and 

 other birds which belong to the central valley of the 

 eastern continent, much more than to the countries 

 on the shores of the Western Sea. We look lor our 

 regular migrant birds in the warmth of summer only, 

 or chiefly, in the southern parts of the country ; but 

 such a bird as the hoopoe is just as likely to occur in 

 Caithness as in Cornwall, and in the Orkneys or the 

 Hebrides, as in the isles of the Channel. In the 

 eastern parts of the continent they range much far- 

 ther to the north on their summer excursions, and 

 are not uncommon in Russia, or even in Siberia. 

 This might, however, be expected ; for, though the 

 winters there are exceedingly cold, and the summers 

 of short duration, those short summers are very warm, 

 and the country is thronged with such animals as 

 those upon which the hoopoes feed. 



Hoopoes, and also some of the other birds which 

 most resemble them in haunts, habits, and character, 

 are understood to make a sort of perpetual summer 

 of it, unless in the case of such strays as happen to 

 fall upon our winter, by missing the line and time of 

 their migration. In consequence of this, the birds 

 are understood to breed two or three times, or even 

 more frequently, according to circumstances, in the 

 course of the year. The nest is described as being 

 rather miscellaneous in its position, but, true to those 

 migrant birds of the banks of rivers, always in some 

 sort of concealment. It may be in a hollow tree, 

 among the tangled roots near the ground, in a hole 

 of a wall, or a crevice of the rock ; and though the 

 female does adapt her labour in building so as slightly 

 to improve the less commodious places, yet she is no 

 very skilful nest-builder ; and the extent of her labour 

 usually goes no farther than collecting, first, a few 

 withered leaves, and then a few feathers. The hatch 

 varies much in number, being as many as seven when 

 the situation and season are peculiarly favourable, and 

 not more than two when circumstances are the reverse. 



In Egypt and several other parts of Africa the 

 birds frequent the meadows in the close vicinity of 

 human dwellings ; but on their northern excursions, 

 they are rather fond of solitary places. In Egypt 

 indeed they are greatly encouraged, from their labours 

 in destroying the insects with which the humid banks 

 of the Nile are infested, and accordingly they are as 

 familiar and have their nests as much intermixed with 

 the dwellings of the peopl.e as the common house 

 swallows have with us. The eggs are oblong, of a 

 bluish white colour, and marked with small spots of 

 pale brown. The young have to be fed for a con- 

 siderable time in the nest, and the feeding of them is 

 rather a laborious occupation for their parents. As 

 is the case with all birds of similar habits, the hoopoes 

 have no song, but they have a sort of three calls; one 

 a hollow booming note thrice repeated without modu- 

 lation ; another a little more musical, but still not 

 modulated, which is the love-song ; and a sharp hiss- 

 ing note, which is the sound of alarm. In their low 

 flight they jerk on the wing, flirting the tail at the 

 same time; and when alarmed they erect the crest 

 and spread the tail fanwise. They are very easily 

 tamed, and can be made to remain without confine- 

 ment if they are properly fed. Their flesh is eaten in 

 the south of Europe, but is not understood to be of 

 much value. 



