CERTHIAD.E. 



without any further preparation, unless a few dry roots or 

 stalks of grass are easily to be procured ; or, when on the 

 ground, they are laid on a few bents and cow-dung negli- 

 gently heaped together. The eggs vary in colour from yel- 

 low to greenish grey. 



The female sits full sixteen days on her eggs before they 

 are hatched ; and when the young come forth they are irre- 

 gularly covered with long gray down, and their beaks are very 

 short and straight : they grow very slowly, and remain in 

 the nest until they are perfectly feathered ; then one after 

 another creeps out of the nest, and either makes for the same 

 branch or for the ground ; and when assembled they are 

 watched over by their parents, who continue their care of them 

 for a long time. 



The Hoopoe is from eleven to twelve inches in length, 

 from the tip of the beak to the extremity of the tail ; 

 and its width, "when the wings are expanded, is from nineteen 

 to twenty inches from tip to tip. The wing, from the carpus 

 to the tip, measures six inches and a half ; and the tail, four 

 inches. The first feather in the wing is very short ; the se- 

 cond, third, and fourth, longer as they approach the fifth, 

 which is the longest in the wing, the sixth being again shorter, 

 and the next one also decreasing in length, the wing has a 

 very rounded appearance : the next feathers in the wing are 

 broader, and almost square at their tips. The ten tail-feathers 

 are almost equal in breadth and length, with blunt squared 

 tips, thereby giving the tail the appearance of having been 

 cut off with a pair of scissors. The beak is fully two inches 

 long, and is narrow, slightly curved, and rather broad at the 

 base ; the tip is blunt and the ridges are both raised, and sharp, 

 giving thus a triangular shape to both mandibles. The beak is 

 only roofed or hollow where the short tongue lies ; and the rest 

 of it is solid, — differing in this respect from the beaks of most 

 other birds. At the base it is of a soiled flesh-colour, towards 



