Hoopoe. 263 



and its flight is weak and faltering ; but it will gently steal from 

 tree to tree, when at ease, with the wavy flapping of the owl, or, 

 when alarmed, with the more suddenly jerking flight of a wood- 

 pecker.* Often, too, it skims over the ground with long un- 

 dulating flight ; and sometimes two or more will toy and gambol 

 with one another in the air, occasionally tumbling several feet 

 downwards before they can recover themselves. When it alights 

 on the ground, it has a habit of bending down the head till it 

 appears to rest the point of the beak on the earth, after the 

 curious manner of the Apteryx or Kiwi-kiwi, as seen in the 

 Zoological Gardens. As regards its diet, it is essentially a foul 

 feeder, searching for its food in the dirt and filth of an Oriental 

 village ; and when in the act of swallowing it always raises its 

 bill aloft. Mr. Seebohm points out that the young Hoopoes have 

 short straight bills, which afterwards develop gradually into 

 the long curved beak of the adult bird. 



The only occasion on which I have had the good fortune to see 

 it alive in a wild state in Europe, was from a railway carriage in 

 Hanover. The bird was marching about with great dignity on 

 the embankment, strutting with conscious pride of its good 

 looks; and before it flew away, erected its crest, and showed 

 itself off to great advantage. But subsequently I became very 

 familiar with it in Egypt, watching it every day as it marched 

 about among the village outhouses, or beneath the groves of 

 palm-trees with which most of the towns and villages are 

 sheltered on the banks of the Ni]e ; just as it has done for four 

 thousand years or more ; for its peculiar form is unmistakably 

 represented, and may be immediately recognised in the famous 

 rock-cut tombs of Beni Hassan, and elsewhere. There it is most 

 tame and confiding, marching about with no more alarm at man 

 than is shown by our barndoor fowls, though elsewhere it is 

 of a shy timid disposition ; but the Arabs have a superstitious 

 reverence for it, for they attribute to it marvellous medicinal 

 qualities, and hence call it ' the Doctor.'f Its head, too, is an 



Canon Tristram in Ibis for 1866, p. 80. 

 f Ibid., for 1859, p. 27, and for 1866, p. 80. 



