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or the Indian Hoopoe. It nestles in holes of walls, trees, &c, and lays several pale greenish- 

 blue or bluish-white eggs. Pallas states that he once found the nest of one within the exposed 

 and barely decomposed thorax of a human body, with seven young birds just ready to fly, which 

 defended themselves by a most fetid fluid. Its voice is a pretty loud double or treble hoop, 

 whence its name in most languages. It feeds on the ground, walking with ease, and picking up 

 various insects, as coleoptera, ants, grubs, and small grasshoppers." Lord Lilford writes: — 

 " I have once or twice seen this bird climb a tree in the manner of a Woodpecker, but I do not 

 think that this is its common practice." 



Mr. Yarrell gives the following account of a captive bird which lived in the possession of 

 Mr. A. D. Bartlett for some time : — " This bird is quite tame ; and when unexcited, the high 

 crest falls flat over the top of the head and covers the occiput ; it takes a meal-worm from the 

 hand very readily, nibbles and pinches it between the ends of the mandibles, then putting it on 

 the ground, strikes it several blows with the point of its beak ; when the insect is apparently 

 dead or disabled it is again taken up, and by a particular motion of the head, which is thrown 

 backward, and the beak opened, the meal-worm drops into the gape of the mouth and is 

 swallowed. The call for another is a sharp note; but it also utters at times a sound closely 

 resembling the word ' hoop, hoop, hoop,' but breathed out so softly, but rapidly, as to remind the 

 hearer of the note of the Dove. This bird constantly rubs himself in the sand with which the 

 bottom of his large cage is supplied, dusting himself like the Larks, but takes great care to shake 

 off any sand or gravel that may adhere to his food, which is raw meat, chopped, and boiled egg. 

 He hides superfluous food, and resorts to his hoard when hungry. When allowed to come out of 

 his cage, he takes short flights about the room, but would not be considered a bird of great power 

 on the wing ; yet the Bishop of Norwich has recorded that one ' approached a vessel in the 

 middle of the Atlantic, and kept company with it a good way, but did not settle on board, which 

 it probably would have done had it been tired.' At the moment of settling on the floor of the 

 room, Mr. Bartlett's bird bends the head downward till the point of the beak touches the floor, 

 after which, as well as occasionally at other times, the long feathers forming the crest are alter- 

 nately elevated and depressed in a slow and gracefnl manner, the bird assuming an appearance of 

 great vivacity, running on the ground with a very quick step. M. Necker, in his Memoir on the 

 Birds of Geneva, says that Hoopoes fight desperately and leave the ground covered with their 

 feathers." In his latest paper on the birds of China, Mr. Swinhoe gives the following interesting 

 particulars concerning this bird's note: — "I described in the 'Zoologist' for 1858, and in the 

 P. Z. S. for 1863, the peculiar way in which the Hoopoe produces its notes — by puffing out the 

 sides of its neck and hammering on the ground at the production of each note, thereby 

 exhausting the air at the end of the series of three, which make up its song. Before it repeats 

 its call, it repeats the puffing of the neck, with a slight gurgling noise. When it is able to 

 strike its bill, the sound is the correct ' hoo-hoo-hoo,' but when perched on a rope and only 

 jerking out the song with nods of the head, the notes more resemble the syllables ' hoh-hoh-hoh.' 

 Mr. Darwin makes use of this last fact to show that some birds have instrumental means to 

 produce their music (' Descent of Man,' ii. p. 62). It is not to this point, however, that I wish 

 to call attention, but to the fact of the bird's puffing out the sides of its neck. It is generally 

 supposed that the song of a bird is produced by actions of the lower larynx on air passing up the 



