HOOPOE. 
381 
perfectly uncovered and open ; wings ample, 
fourth and fifth quill longest, others gradu- 
ating ; tarsi and feet short, claws strong, 
grooved beneath, that of the hallux nearly 
straight. 
Types. — U. epops, Capensis. 
Note. — Europe, Africa. Head crested. 
Hoopoe, Upupa epops, Will. Linn. fyc . — 
Hoopoe of British authors. — This beautifully 
marked and elegant bird strays occasionally to 
the British isles, and scarcely a year passes 
without some specimens being obtained, some- 
times in the south, and at others almost in the 
extreme north. Those of late years have gene- 
rally been recorded in the periodicals of the day, 
and the notices are sufficiently authentic and 
numerous for us to consider it as a bird not so 
uncommonly met with, as many others which 
have acquired a title to a place in our fauna. A 
very few instances are also on record, of its having 
bred occasionally in Britain, but these have been, 
perhaps, occasioned by circumstances over which 
the bird had no control. On the Continent, it is 
a regular and periodical visitant in summer, and 
breeds particularly in the southern countries, re- 
tiring afterwards to Asia and Northern Africa. It 
is said to frequent districts rather low and moist, 
feeding chiefly upon insects. Mr Greenhow has 
remarked it on the Bordeaux side of the Garonne, 
