gotten. It can scarcely be considered a very rare bird, since
hardly a season passes but one or wore examples are obtained,
and there is not a county on our southern or eastern coasts in
■which this species has not been killed several times. Though
a summer visiter from-North Africa, and going even to the
North of Europe, it seldom makes its appearance in this
country till after the breeding season is over; and the period
of the year in which this bird most commonly occurs is jn
autumn. To this, however, a few exceptions are recorded.
Dr. Latham had a young bird sent him on the 10th of May;,
1T86. Montagu mentions that a pair in Hampshire left a
nest they had begun ; and Mr. Jesse,'i in the third volume of
his Gleanings in Natural History, says, that “ some years
ago a pair of Hoopoes built their nest-, and hatched their
young, in a tree close to the house at Park-end, near Chichester.”
They build constantly in hollow trees, "collecting a
few grass bents and feathers,' upon which from four to six or
seven eggs are deposited: these are of a uniform pale lavender
grey, one inch and half a line- long, by eight lines in
breadth. These birds pass much of their time in the day
upon the ground, appearing to- prefer low and moist situations
near woods, where they search for insects, Upon which
they principally subsist. I have had two opportunities of
examining the stomach of the Hoopoe, when killed -in this
country, one of which contained the remains of small coleopterous
insects, the other was partly filled with the skins of
various caterpillars of two different species. Bechstein, in
his Cage Birds, has given an interesting account of the habits
of these birds in confinement, and Mr. Blyth has described,
m the second volume of the New Series of the Magazine of
Natural History, the actions of five or six of these birds,
which were alive in London in the year 1888. ^ I am indebted
to Mr. Bartlett,' the preserver of birds in Museum
Street, for the opportunity of observing a living specimen, a
fine'male, nowin his possession.. This bird is quite tame,
and when- unexcited, the high crest falls flat over the top of
the head, and covers the: o c c ip u t i t takes a meal-worm from
the hand very readily, nibbles and pinches it between the
ends of the mandibles; then putting it on the ground, strikes
it.several blows with the point of the beak; when the insect
is apparently dead o r disabled < it is again taken up, and by a
particular motion of the head, which::is thrown backward, and
the beak opened; the meal-worm drops into the gape of the j
ïhofitli and? is swallowed.. .The call for another is a sharp
note; b u t'it also, utters af times a sound closely resembling
the-word,/hoop, Hoop, .hoop,* but breathed out so softly, but
rapidly, as to/remind'.'.the- hearer of the note? of the Dove.
This bird constantly rubs himself in the sand with which the
-bottom of his large cage is supplied, dusting himself like the
Larks, butr. takes great care- to shake- off any sand or gravel
that may adhere to5 his; food^ .which is raw meat7 chopped, and
^holled ’ egg:. • He hidtil isuperfluQ^ food, and rèsorts to • his
.hoard when hungry.. . When allowed to! come out of his cage,
he takes- short flights about' the room ; but. would-not be considered
a bird of great'power on the wing; yét the Bishop of
Norwich has recorded that one approached a vessel in the
middle of the Atlantic, and kept company, with it a good
way, but did not settle on board, which it probably would
have' done had it been tired.”
At the moment of settling on the floor of the room, Mr.
Bartlett’s bird bends the head downward till the point of the
beak touches the floor, after which, as well as occasionally at
-other times, the long feathers forming the crest are alternately
elevated and depressed in a slow and graceful manner, the bird
assuming an appearance of great vivacity, running On the
* The note probably suggested the, name, which, according to Turner, was
an Howpe ; öermanice, ein lïöü^. th e French name; La Huppe, is particularly
Appropriate, from its double reference to the crest and the note.