HOOPOE. 
117 
morning of April 28th, remained throughout the day, and 
was there again on the following morning. He was not 
at all shy, and his appetite seemed insatiable. " As far 
as we could observe he fed upon ants, and also upon 
what appeared to be some sort of grub, which he extracted 
from the ground, apparently from holes already made by 
the starlings." 
In 1893, s^^^ ^"^^^^ ^he "Landslip," near 
Ventnor, as recorded by Dr. Cowper^ and the Winchester 
College Collection contains one obtained at Standon, near 
Hursley, in 1894. 
Kelsall was informed by Mr. Gibb, formerly bailiff to 
Major Murray, at Ossemsley Manor, near Christchurch, that 
he saw a hoopoe in his garden on several occasions in 
the summer of 1895, and the bird appeared to be feeding 
upon a strange kind of ant which was swarming at the 
time. He sent specimens of the ant to the late Miss 
Ormerod, the well-known authority on noxious insects, 
who replied as follows : — " Your black ants appear to be 
Formica fuliginosa. I only twice met with this kind in 
my father's woods in Gloucestershire, and both times, 
curiously enough, one of my brothers, who had a great 
fondness for ornithology, saw the hoopoe." Mr. Gibbs' 
house is quite near to Wilverley Forest Lodge, the place 
haunted by hoopoes in 1861. 
Dr. Cowper^ records another as seen by a keeper 
of Colonel Atherley's near Languard Manor, in the Isle 
of Wight, in the spring of 1897; Mr. Stares saw 
one at Porchester on May 19th of that year.2 
Dr. Gunther, of the British Museum, wrote to the 
" Field " in January, 1900, that he had distinct information 
^ Hants Court Guide." = " Zoologist." 1S98. 
L 
