Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/84

68 to birds, while their presence is a protection against prying crows and squirrels. The nest is usually built in March or April, and the eggs, of which there are two (I once found three), are pure white, just like little sugar comfits.

It is a wide step from the Flowerpecker to the Hoopoe, a bird about the size of a Myna, or Starling, which in the Fauna of British India appears in the company of Hornbills and Kingfishers. If I could get anybody to support me, I would advance the theory that it is a species of land snipe. Its beak is more than two inches in length and very slender, and just as the snipe thrusts its sensitive forceps into soft mud for aquatic worms, so the Hoopoe probes the dry land and draws out "ant-lions" and other subterranean grubs. The legs of the snipe are long, for it has to wade in water, but those of the Hoopoe are very short indeed, so that it is obliged to carry its body very level in order to keep its tail off the ground. This, together with its erect neck and prim gait, gives it the appearance of being a very precise sort of person, which no doubt it is. It is always exquisitely dressed, in a suit of reddish fawn, with the skirts (called in bird language, wings and tail) of some black material, with broad white bars, which flash out with beautiful effect when it starts to fly. On its crown it wears a crest, which is usually folded down and projects behind, giving its head and neck the appearance of a toy pickaxe; but at times, when it is startled, and always in the act of alighting, the feathers start up into a lovely corona of cinnamon red bordered with black. The Hoopoe is found all over India and may be seen occasionally on Cumballa Hill and