144 BOMBAY DUCKS 
trunk of an old tree, in a hole in the wall of a house 
under the eaves, or in a hole ina bank, The entrance 
to the nest is often so small that it seems impossible 
that a hoopoe could squeeze through it. 
But it is the feathers that make a bird; take away 
these, and what remains is but a fraction of the original, 
A sparrow will pass with the utmost ease through an 
aperture which is scarcely larger than a wedding ring. 
A hoopoe’s nest is an exceedingly unsavoury affair. 
Any sanitary officer would unhesitatingly condemn it 
as totally unfit for habitation ; but birds, like natives of 
this country, seem able to thrive in spots so odoriferous 
as to paralyse European olfactory nerves! The nest is 
just a bundle of rags, feathers, and rubbish, and has no 
distinctive shape or form. 
Mr. William Jesse states that he once came across a 
hoopoe’s nest into the structure of which a dead hoopoe 
had been worked. This is surely practising economy 
with a vengeance. Pallas states that he found a 
hoopoe’s nest “within the exposed and barely decom- 
posed thorax of a human body, with seven young birds 
just ready to fly, which defended themselves by a most 
foetid fluid.” It is in the face of facts such as these 
that I find it difficult to accept the theory of sexual 
selection, according to which the beautiful plumage and 
the magnificent songs of birds are due to the esthetic 
tastes of the females. 
Books on Indian natural history state that the nesting 
season of the hoopoe is from February to May. These 
limits, however, must be considerably extended, Last 
January two hoopoes brought up a family in an old 
