UPUPA, Lin. &c. HOOPOE.
Bill very long, slightly arched, slender, triangular, com pressed ; nostrils basal, lateral, ovoid, open, and sur mounted with feathers in front ; a crest of a double row of long feathers, erectable at the pleasure of the bird.
U. Plops, Lin. &c. Common Hoopoe or HO Oft Ferru ginous, wings barred with black and white ; tail black, with a lunated white bar, and the crest tipt with black and white.
This beautiful bird weighs about three ounces, and measures about twelve inches in length, and nineteen in expanse of wing. It inhabits Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the last of which many of them are stationary. Some of the migrating detachments visit Britain occasionally in autumn, but they seldom breed with us. In France they arrive late in the spring, and depart towards the close of summer. They are found plentifully in the deserts of Russia and Tartary, and are observed in small flocks at Gibraltar, in the month of March, on their passage north ward, resting for a few hours. The female is said to have two or three broods in the year, frequently dispensing with a formal nest, and making a bed for her young by scraping together the dust in the hollow of a tree, or near the roots of trees on the ground ; but she also some times selects the crevice of a rock, or a hole in a wall, and lines it with a few feathers or dried leaves ; and, on other occasions, she seems to avail herself of the forsaken nest of some other species. The number of eggs varies from two to seven, but is generally four or five. They are somewhat oblong, bluish-white, and marked with pale brown spots. The food of this species consists chiefly of worms, and of insects of the beetle tribe, with the refuse of which, and the droppings of the young, the nest is some times rendered very fetid ; and hence the popular but ab surd notion, that the hoopoe smears its nest with dung, and even with human ordure. In some countries the species haunts meadows and moist soils in search of its food ; and in Egypt, where many of them follow the course of the Nile in its retreat, they devour also frogs' spawn and young tadpoles ; but in other regions, they generally betray a partiality to barren and sequestered situations. The migrating individuals are particularly
shy and solitary, two of them being seldom seen together, and even their migrations frequently taking place by in dividuals, and not by flocks. In Africa, the stationary birds associate in great numbers ; and, in Egypt, they are to a certain degree domesticated ; for they both build and breed on the terraces and among the houses. When they perch, it is usually at a few feet from the ground, and on a willow or osier twig, when they pronounce the syllable noon in a strong and deliberate tone, usually thrice in suc cession, turning their long bill on their breast, and erecting their head with a smart motion. Sometimes they utter a shrill and disagreeable cry ; zee, zee, is their call of alarm ; and in spring the amorous note of the male, which has been expressed by boo. boo, boo, is loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance. Their flight is slow and undulating, performed by jerks, and sustained by frequent percussions of the wings ; and their march resembles that of our common fowl, or of the partridge. The crest usually falls behind on the neck, except when the bird is surprised or irritated, and then it stands erect ; the tail, too, in that case being usually erected and spread out like a fan. Most sportsmen know that it is not so easily shot as Buffon alleges ; but, if taken by surprise, when either young or mature, it is easily tamed, provided it be not kept in a cage, but allowed to roam in a house or garden, when it will also eat of many things which it would have rejected in its wild state. In captivity, how ever, it seldom survives the third year. The flesh of these birds has a musky flavour, which is said to repel cats ; but it is in request for the table in the south of France, Italy, the Greek Islands, &c.