UPUPA, in ornithology, a genus belonging to the order of picæ. The beak is arcuated, convex, and something blunt; the tongue is obtuse, triangular, entire, and very short; and the feet are fitted for walking. There are two species; both natives of India. The epops, hoopoe, or dung-bird, is frequently seen in Britain. It may be readily distinguished from all others that visit these islands by its beautiful crest, which it can erect or depress at pleasure. It is in length 12 inches; in breadth, 19; the bill is black, two inches and a half long, slender, and incurvated; the irides are hazel: the crest consists of a double row of feathers; the highest about two inches long; the tips are black, their lower part of a pale orange colour; the neck is of a pale reddish brown; the breast and belly white; the lesser coverts of the wings are of a light brown; the back, scapulars, and wings, crossed with broad bars of white and black; the rump is white; the tail consists of only 10 feathers, white marked with black, in form of a crescent, the horns pointing towards the end of the feathers. The legs are short and black; the exterior toe is closely united at the bottom to the middle toe.
According to Linnæus, it takes its name from its note, which has a sound similar to the word; or it may be derived from the French huppe, or "crested;" it breeds in hollow trees, and lays two ash-coured eggs; it feeds on insects, which it picks out of ordure of all kinds: the ancients believed that it made its nest of human excrement; so far is certain, that its hole is excessively fetid from the tainted food it brings to its young. The country people in Sweden look on the appearance of this bird as a presage of war;
— Facies armata videtur.
And formerly the vulgar in our own country esteemed it a forerunner of some calamity. It visits these islands frequently; but not at stated seasons, neither does it breed with us. It is found in many parts of Europe, in Egypt, and even as remote as Ceylon. The Turks call it tir chaous, or the "messenger-bird," from the resemblance its crest has to the plumes worn by the chaous or Turkish couriers.
Ovid says that Tereus was changed into this bird:
Veritur in volucrum, cuius tantum vertice crista,
Prominet in medio cum pro longa caudæ rostrans:
Nomen epops volucris. Metam. lib. vi. l. 631.
Tereus, through grief and haste to be reveng'd,
Shares the like fate, and to a bird is chang'd.
Fix'd on his head the crested plumes appear.
Long is his beak, and sharp'd as a spear. Crossall.
UR (anc. geog.), a citadel of Mesopotamia, situate between the Tigris and Nisibis; taken by some for Ur of
Uranburg of the Chaldees, the residence of Abraham. What seems to confirm this is, that from Ur to Haran, the other residence of the patriarch, the road lies directly for Palestine. And it is no objection that Ur is said to be in Mesopotamia; because the parts next the Tigris were occupied by the Chaldeans, as seems to be confirmed from Acts vii. 2, 4. It is called Orche, in Strabo; Orchoe, in Ptolemy.