continued to visit that kingdom, though details of its occurrence
may he wanting.*
The conspicuous plumage of the Hoopoe, together with its
familiarity towards man in countries where it is unmolested,
render it an attractive object to travellers.! When no danger
threatens the cock sits on a bough, a stump or a wall,
uttering his simple love-song hoo, hoo, hoo, t puffing out his
throat and striking his bill against his perch at each note; or
he parades the ground with a stately walk, his head bowing
at every step, and his crest alternately lifted and lowered, in
a slow and graceful manner. Nor does the bird wholly drop
this deportment when engaged in feeding, though that occupation
quickens its pace and often leads it to the most
undignified spots in search of the worms or grubs there to
be found abundantly, either by probing the soil or by stamping
on the earth and so making them come to the surface.
As each animal appears it is seized—if it be small, it is
jerked into the air, adroitly caught again and gulped down ;
if it be large, it is beaten against the ground, and then, by a
sudden throwing-back of the head, made to fall into the
open gape—but the bill is always raised aloft in the act of
swallowing. Though the bird generally seeks its living amid
the most obscene refuse, there are places in which it finds
food of a less impure origin, as Mr. Greenhow (Mag. Nat.
* I t seems to have appeared most frequently in Wexford, Waterford, and Cork,
but occasionally in Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Galway and Antrim.
When the former editions of this work appeared the habits of this bird, as
well as of the two whose history next follow, had been studied by but few of our
countrymen, and the Author had to write from very insufficient sources of information.
A great change has since taken place in this respect, and so far as
general habits can be observed theirs have been by many excellent field-workers
in many different lands. The wealth of materials offered to a compiler is now
very great, as regards all three species, and it can hardly be doubted that the
impulse given by these earlier had much to do with its acquisition.
J Sometimes syllabled hoop, hoop, hoop or hoo, poo, poo. The sound seems to
be produced by expelling the air from the dilatable oesophagus. From this cry
comes the name which the bird bears in many widely-differing languages. The
French Hupe, or as now commonly written JEfuppe, is often thought to refer to
the tuft of feathers which is so characteristic of the species ; but according to
M. Littrd (Diet, de la Langue Fran?, i. p. 2067) is but a secondary meaning of
the word, and the.tuft is named from the bird, not the bird from the tuft.
Hist. vii. p. 155) observed it examining the pollard willows
and poplars near Bordeaux for the sake of the insects which
infest their decaying trunks. Beetles of many kinds and in
every stage, as well as caterpillars are also eaten, and Capt.
Sperling (Ibis, 1864, p. 282) saw it in Rhodes hawking in the
air for flies. The Hoopoe is not commonly credited with
much power of wing, yet this fact and that of its affording
the falconer a good flight,* to say nothing of the vast distances
it traverses in its yearly migrations, and of its generally
wandering habits,! prove that to be far greater than has been
supposed. Ordinarily, however, it is seen to fly but little,
merely flitting in an undulatory course from one feeding-
ground to another near by, or mounting to some place where
it may cleanse its bill from the soil that has accumulated
thereon while digging. It is seldom found far from the
shelter of trees or buildings, for its timidity is great. It
flinches from the swoop of a passing Swallow, and on the
appearance of a Hawk, or even a Crow, say Bechstein and
Naumann, it squats on the earth, spreading its tail and
wings, so that the latter almost meet in front, and throws
back its head, pointing the bill upwards, in which strange
posture it remains till the danger is over. Yet as regards its
own kind it is courageous enough, and in spring the cocks
fight violently, leaving, says Necker, the ground covered with
their feathers.
With all its dignity and beauty, the Hoopoe possesses, as
has been stated, some very unpleasant peculiarities, and these
are intensified during the breeding-season. The eggs are
usually laid in a hollow tree, wall or stone-heap,! sometimes,
* The late Mr. Newcome told the Editor of a flight in which both Hawk
and Hoopoe mounted out of sight, and so quickly that his informant, a Dutch
falconer, said it was as though they had been “ pulled up to the sky by ropes.”
f Bishop Stanley says (Fam. Hist. B. ii. p. 67) that “ one approached a vessel
in the middle of the Atlantic, and kept company with it for a good way, but did
not settle on board, which it probably would have done had it been tired.”
+ Pallas (Zoogr. Rosso-As. i. p. 434) mentions an extraordinary site for a
nest:—“ Zarizyni in domo extra urbem sita, diu non habitata, intra ipsas
latrinas pullos educaverat Upupa, et licet tunc hominum frequentia turbata,
postero anno tamen ad eundem nidum rediit. 8 He adds that he found another
nest, with some young, “ qui foetidissimo ichore ex ano ejaculato se defende-
VOL. I I. 3 I