UPUPID^.. ~ 393 



The Indian Hoopoe is found throughout Southern India and 

 Ceylon, extending through part of Central India to the North- 

 western Provinces and the Dehra Doon. 



It frequents groves of trees, thin forest-jungle, gardens, and the 

 neighbourhood of villages, and old deserted buildings, such as 

 mosques, tombs, and large mud walls. It feeds entirely on the 

 ground, walking with great ease, and picks up various insects, as 

 coleoptera, ants, small grasshoppers, and, as Mr. Burgess informs 

 tis, the larvas of the ant-lion (Myrmeleo). It frequently, too, 

 searches the dung of cattle for grubs and other insects. When 

 feeding, the crest is depressed ; but it invariably erects it at once 

 on seating itself. Its flight is undulating and yet vigorous, for, 

 as Mr. Philipps remarks, and as I have often witnessed, a trained 

 hawk almost always fails in seizing it. Its call, like that of its 

 congener, is a deep tohoot, usually of two syllables, whence its 

 Persian name. I have obtained the eggs occasionally from a hole 

 in an old building or mud wall ; they were four or five in number, 

 very pale blue (like skim-milk, as Burgess says,) and of a very 

 elongated form. 



All the Hoopoes from Burmah differ from this last species in 

 having the white spot on the 1 st primary ; but, like it, want the 

 white on the crest, and the rufous colour is deep ; the chin is not 

 white, and the lower parts are strongly dashed with dusky. In 

 these birds, too, the bill is very long, 2J to 2f inches. This race 

 abounds in Burmah, and is a permanent resident there ; for I found 

 it breedino- in holes of trees in June and July. A specimen from 

 Ceylon, and another from the Dehra Doon, in the Museum of the 

 Asiatic Society, appear to belong to this race. Is it a distinct 

 species ? If so, U. longirostris. One or two others are peculiar to 

 Africa, viz., U. minor, and U. senegalensis. 



The remaining birds of this family belong to the sub-family 

 Irrisorhi(B, formerly classed with Promerops, and are peculiar to 

 Africa and Madagascar. 



Irrisor is described as going in small flocks, feeding on cockroaches 

 and other insects on the trunks and branches of trees, over virhich 



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