THE HOOPOES. 
6l 
the earliest arrivals near Gibraltar as the i6th to the i8th of 
that month, though the greater number pass northward in 
March, returning during August, September, and October. 
The winter home of the Hoopoe is in Senegambia and North 
eastern Africa, the Central Asian individuals doubtless winter- 
ing in North-western India, and the Chinese and Japanese 
birds in Southern China. 
Habits. — It is a pity that the indiscriminate slaughter of this 
pretty bird deprives us in this country of an opportunity of 
seeing the Hoopoe in a state of nature, for it is admitted by 
everyone who has had that privilege as being a very graceful 
bird in its movements and ways, particularly, says Mr. Howard 
Saunders, “at the time of courtship, when the bird struts 
about with crest erect, uttering a note resembling a soft bu-bu 
(whence the Spanish term Abubilld), or hoop-hoop, to which, 
and not to its crest, it owes its English and French names.” 
The nest is placed in the hollow of a tree, and in some 
countries of Europe the bird has disappeared or become re- 
duced in numbers, owing to the cutting down of old timber. 
To look at a Hoopoe, one could scarcely imagine a more 
neat and cleanly-looking bird, and yet its nesting habits are 
often disgusting. The material of which the nest is composed 
is of the slightest, but it is surrounded by ordure of some kind, 
which, according to Mr. Howard Saunders’ experience in 
Spain, “causes an intolerable stench, which is subsequently 
increased by the droppings of the female and young.” In 
China, according to Mr. Swinhoe it is known by the name of 
“ Coffin-Bird,” as it breeds in the holes of exposed Chinese 
coffins, and Pallas relates his finding a nest in the chest of a 
decaying corpse. 
The Hoopoe feeds on insects and worms, boring in the 
ground with its long bill for the former. It devours a large 
number of worms and insects of various kinds, beetles, cater- 
pillars, grasshoppers, &c. It is said that the bird ’always 
throws up its food into the air and catches it in its bill, before 
swallowing it, a very Hornbill-like habit, and one which has a 
bearing on the relationship of the Hoopoes to this Family. 
For my own part, I have no doubt as to the relationship 
of the Hoopoes with the Hornbills, and another remarkable 
