L58 
The B'u'ds of Gambia. 
they strut about with a \efy stai'liug-Iike gait, or iierched ou a tree oi- tall 
bush, where the beautiful i-rest and elegant shajie show to the best 
advantage. 
/rriior er;// /, n,rh f/„rln,s. RED-BILLED WOOD-HOOPOE. 
HaiKjc. . West Africa, Sefiegaiubia to Nigeria : Xorth-etist and Eiinat- 
orial Africa i ILL.) 
This species, a bhick bird with wliite wing-marks, a fau-shajied tail and 
long curved bill. red. or i)artly red, and partly black, is very common and found 
everywhere througlumt tlie country from the gardens of Bathurst to the 
most inland contines of our territory. They move about the bush in noisy 
chattering parti' s of about a dozen, flitling from tree to tree, always pro- 
gressing slowly forward, with I'ather feeble flight and hesitating wings, 
searching the trunks aiul branches for insects, tap])iiig and pecking the bark 
with their long bills, like Woodpeckers, and climbing about the tree trunks 
and branches, or at times hanging on with the support of their tails to a 
vertical bough like so many ovei grown ink-dipjied 'J'ree-creepers. Even in 
the lireeding season in the early jiart of the rains (July), one still sees these 
birds in parties as at utlu i- times, for they lireed in company making use of 
holes in trees. In o:ie tree, from which two down covered young M'ere 
l>i(>ught me. there were three other iiests of these birds, all in holes of the 
main trunk, tlie lowest at least twent_\- feet from the ground. One of these 
holes had previously been occtipied by a pair of Horubills as a nesting-site 
and was alioiit eighteen inches decj) and had an opening which easily admitted 
the hand and arm : but the others were much more protected, the entrance 
holes V)eing only just big enough to admit the parents, that is about two 
inches in diameter, I rather expected to find the exterior of the nest ex- 
tremely foul from the accumulation of excrement and food-refuse dropped 
about i)y the old birds, but this was by no means the case ; although the 
interior, or rather the two young ones from the interior, were dirty and 
evil smelling, and no doubt the exterior would have been as bad. if it had 
not been so fre(iuently and thoroughly washed down by the almost daily rain 
of the season, which comes down in sheets that almost clean up an ordinary 
coast town, much more so, therefore, the comparatively trifling mess a few 
small birds can make. 
During life, or when recently shot, these birds ha\ e a iieculiar mousey 
smell, from which the.y get the name of "Stinking Bird." which is what they 
are ciunnioidy called by the Engli.sh-speaking i)eople here. Their ]\Iandingo 
name is " Kadadda." an attempt at an imitation of their cry. 
T'he I'oUowing description is taken from three examples shot Dec. IS. 
vm 
Ailiilt mall'. Head and all upper parts black glossed with green and 
blue, and with some tinge of purple in certain lights, but the lower back is 
dull black with scarcely any gloss : upper tail coverts black with a blue gloss 
towards the ends of the feathers : wings dark metallic green, all primaries 
In last yeai'.< volume of the ''Ibis" there was a woodcut of this species taken (lom a 
recent wort; on Kast Africa, "On Safari." This gave a most life-like and convincing picture oi 
the Wdod hoopoe as seen in life, and was certainly one of the best black and white sketches of 
biid-life I have ever seen. 
