Cor?-esponde7ice. 281


Why should not small earthworms be placed iu a deep vessel under

damp moss, into which the birds would push their bills ? They need, I

think, a good layer of sand to run on, always clean and dry.


As far as I can remember, my Hoopoes certainly threw down their

throats the so-called " ant' eggs " as sold by dealers.


Mealworm beetles would probably be very good for them.


Hubert D. Asttjey.


Sir, — I have no doubt that Mr. R. Phillipps has had far more ex-

perience of Hoopoes in confinement in this country than I have, but all

the same, the only good Hoopoes in Europe that I have seen have been

fed mainly on mealworms. One in the Frankfurt-am-Main collection had

practically nothing else: he was absolutel}' perfect, and had been there

eight years. Those that have lived longest in our Zoological Gardens have

had chiefly mealworms : two or three years is about their limit of life.

The present specimen is a very good one, and has been there some time —

over two years, I think.


Abroad, I have had many Hoopoes. A pair bred annually in a crack

(originally caused by an earthquake) iu our house in the Canary Islands,

while two pairs nested in the terraced walls of the garden. Each year I

used to take a brood and place them iu a large aviary in our verandah ;

they were fed by the parents and by us as well. They showed no fear, and

when the parents had done with them they would follow us for food all

about the garden, and down into a barrauco (dry water-course) about two

hundred yards away, where they would hunt for and obtain their natural

food, viz. cricket-larvee, from under stones. We usualh' had a brood of six

or seven, but these used to dwindle down to two or three by November (the

rest ceasing to come back to their aviary); while by January the others

looked so wretched that we gave them their full liberty. They had their

natural food, cricket-larvse, centipedes etc., the larvse of a beetle that is

common in the roots of a certain plant, and in addition, Carl Capelle's food,

with yolk of egg (Abrahams') added. These birds got split beaks! and I

have seen several wild birds in trouble from the same cause. I caught one

in Morocco evidently starving from having its upper mandible split.


It is amusing to see old Hoopoes feeding their young. They only

carry one insect at a time, as a rule, and quite at the tip of their beak. A

centipede is carefully folded into about four loops. The Hoopoe feeds its

young largeW on smallish centipedes about two-and-a-half inches long;

but the Roller on a very large and poisonous one, quite six inches long. I

camped once for a long time in some ruins swarming with Rollers, quite

three hundred pairs, and they brought in little else but these most un-

appetizing (to us) looking creatures. While the Hoopoes — there was a nest

within five yards of my bed — brought small brown centipedes and crickets.


If bread and milk should prove to be the best food for Hoopoes, TitTis"

an interesting thing, and shows on what extremely unnatural food a bird



