THE HOopPoE. 45 
Family—OUPUPIDZE. 
THE HOoopok. 
Upupa epops, LINN. 
N Europe and Asia the Hoopoe occurs in summer as far to the north as about 
56° lat., but stragglers have been met with even to within the Arctic Circle: 
to the south it breeds in suitable places throughout Europe and the greater part 
of Asia; it winters in Madagascar, Abyssinia, Nubia, North Africa, and Senegal ; 
it is resident in the Canaries, and occurs in Madeira and the Azores. To Great 
Britain and Ireland the Hoopoe is a tolerably regular summer visitor, but 
unhappily its striking appearance and its love for open country render it a mark 
for every gun, so that but few of those specimens which reach our shores ever 
leave them again, much less have a chance of breeding here. Nevertheless the 
Hoopoe has now and again been known to nest in many of the southern counties 
of England, and has been met with in nearly every county, as well as in the 
Orkneys and Shetlands. 
The male bird has a conspicuous crest of large cinnamon feathers tipped with 
black on the crown, some of the feathers also with a subterminal white band; * 
upper parts cinnamon, paler, and barred with black and white on the lower back; 
rump white; wings black, varied with white bands, excepting the inner secondaries 
which are striped with buff; tail black, crossed by an arched white belt, the outer 
extremities of which almost reach to the tips of the outermost feathers; the fore- 
parts below are of a rather more rosy cinnamon than on the upper parts; the 
abdomen and under tail-coverts white: bill black, flesh-coloured at base of lower 
mandible; feet deep brown; iris pale brown. The female is slightly smaller and 
the crest, wing and bill are decidedly shorter. The young is duller and has a 
shorter bill. 
The opening words of Stevenson’s chapter on the Hoopoe cannot be too widely 
circulated, and therefore I make no apology for repeating them here :—‘Of all 
our rarer migratory visitants there is none whose appearance is more regularly 
noted than the Hoopoe, its singular plumage striking the most indifferent observer 
* This crest can be erected or depressed at pleasure: when at rest it is usually depressed, but when the 
bird alights on the earth or when it is excited the feathers are raised. 
