46 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 
and, unfortunately, in almost every instance insuring its destruction. Although 
the annual notices of its persecution, in our local and natural history journals, 
belie the stereotyped heading of “vara avis,’ no specimen is safe for an instant 
on our inhospitable shores, and many an opportunity of examining the peculiar 
habits, in a wild state, of this most interesting bird are lost to the naturalist 
through the greed of collectors.” (Birds of Norfolk, vol. i, p. 298). 
Although, as already stated, the Hoopoe seeks its food in the open country, 
haunting plains, fields, meadows, or roads, it prefers the neighbourhood of trees, 
and more particularly affects open groves in the vicinity of pasture-lands; nor, 
unfortunately, does it at all object to the neighbourhood of human dwellings, being 
more shy of its own kind than of man. Most of the life of this bird is passed 
upon the earth, where it struts and nods, almost in the manner of a minature 
Crowned Pigeon, feeding entirely upon insects, their larvee and pupe, spiders, 
probably centipedes, and worms. 
The flight of the Hoopoe is buoyant and undulating; but, excepting during 
migration, is not long sustained; consisting chiefly of short excursions along a 
roadway, or from one tree to another. Its call to its mate, from which it takes 
its name, has been variously rendered as hoof, hoop, hoop, a soft bu-bu, pou, pou, 
hoh-hoh-hoh ; bat most Ornithologists seem to be satisfied with the first of these 
versions; the scolding note is a harsh rattling £77, sometimes described as a churr, and 
the alarm note of the young, as with many species which nest in holes is a loud hiss. 
This species commences breeding operations about the middle of May, usually 
selecting a hole in a decayed ash- or willow-tree as a site for the nest, but not 
unfrequently selecting a crevice in a rock, wall, or cave; Lord Lilford mentions 
having once found it on the ground beneath a large stone; whilst Jerdon quotes 
Pallas as having found the nest in the chest of a decaying corpse loosely covered 
with stones; and Stevenson mentions that, according to the late Consul Swinhoe, 
the Hoopoe is called the ‘“‘Coffin-bird” in China from its habit of making its nest 
in holes in exposed coffins. The nest is usually slight, but sometimes consists of 
a good many twigs, straws, bents, rootlets, and feathers, and rarely no materials 
of the usual kind; but invariably a plastering of the most foul-smelling ordure, 
upon which the eggs are deposited: nor does the bird ever remove its own drop- 
pings or those of its young, so that the stench of a Hoopoe’s nest becomes simply 
intolerable, and the five or six eggs, which at first are clear greenish blue, become 
soiled and yellowish.* One brood only is reared in a season. The egg (pl. viii, 
fig. 268) is from Mr. A. B. Farn’s collection. 
* I noted that the Wryneck’s nesting-hole from which I obtained my young birds was in a similar filthy 
condition, so that for hours the evil odour hung about my hands.—A.G.B. 
