Wild ^ Tame Hoopoes 25 



the Scilly Isles, every April brings with it three or four 

 hoopoes, but passing whither, no one knows ; for they 

 arrive only to spend a week or two and are gone again, 

 yet their passage in the vernal migration is an annual 

 event. 



In the water-meadows and rich low-lying pastures 

 of some parts of England, hoopoes would undoubtedly 

 find an abundance of insect food, and would also be 

 extremely useful in digging out with their long slender 

 bills certain grubs destructive to farming and garden- 

 ing, which many birds with shorter bills may be unable 

 to reach beneath the surface of the earth. 



Any one who has voyaged up the Nile, has not left 

 Cairo far behind before the hoopoes are evident to the 

 most unnoticing persons. 



He is a bird of such striking appearance, with his 

 wonderful coronet uplifted on his head, the long, 

 slender, and slightly curved bill, and the beautiful broad 

 butterfly-like wings, banded conspicuously with black 

 and white. 



Walking through the Egyptian villages, it is an 

 ordinary thing to see one or two hoopoes running 

 quickly over the dried Nile mud, either on the edge 

 of some canal or pool, or else prodding with their bills 

 amongst the refuse that lingers lovingly but unsweetly 

 about the mud hovels of the Arabs. In Egypt there 

 is an abundance of beetles, which probably make up 

 a considerable portion of the hoopoe's menu, but to 

 judge by the appalling effluvia that surrounds the nest 

 and young birds, they cannot be altogether nice feeders. 

 Like some people, their sense of taste must be either 



