I cannot but wonder that this Bird you sent should be a stranger unto you, and unto those who had a sight thereof: for, though it be not seen every day, yet we often meet with it in this Country. It is an elegant Bird, which he that once beholdeth can hardly mistake any other for it. From the proper Note it is called an _Hoopebird_ with us; in Greek _Epops_, in Latin _Upupa_. We are little obliged unto our School instruction, wherein we are taught to render _Upupa_, a _Lapwing_, which Bird our natural Writers name _Vannellus_; for thereby we mistake this remarkable Bird, and apprehend not rightly what is delivered of it. We apprehend not the Hieroglyphical considerations which the old Ægyptians made of this observable Bird; who considering therein the order and variety of Colours, the twenty six or twenty eight Feathers in its Crest, his latitancy, and mewing this handsome outside in the Winter; they made it an Emblem of the varieties of the World, the succession of Times and Seasons, and signal mutations in them. And therefore _Orus_, the Hieroglyphick of the World, had the Head of an Hoopebird upon the top of his Staff. Hereby we may also mistake the _Duchiphath_, or Bird forbidden for Food in _Leviticus_ [SN: Levit. 11. 19.]; and, not knowing the Bird, may the less apprehend some reasons of that prohibition; that is, the magical virtues ascribed unto it by the Ægyptians, and the superstitious apprehensions which that Nation held of it, whilst they precisely numbred the Feathers and Colours thereof, while they placed it on the Heads of their Gods, and near their Mercurial Crosses, and so highly magnified this Bird in their sacred Symbols. Again, not knowing or mistaking this Bird, we may misapprehend, or not closely apprehend, that handsome expression of _Ovid_, when _Tereus_ was turned into an _Upupa_, or Hoopebird. _Vertitur in volucrem cui sunt pro vertice Cristæ, Protinus immodicum surgit pro cuspide rostrum Nomen Epops volucri, facies armata videtur._ For, in this military shape, he is aptly phancied even still revengefully to pursue his hated Wife _Progne_: in the propriety of his Note crying out, _Pou, pou, ubi, ubi_, or _Where are you?_ Nor are we singly deceived in the nominal translation of this Bird: in many other Animals we commit the like mistake. So _Gracculus_ is rendred a _Jay_, which Bird notwithstanding must be of a dark colour according to that of _Martial_, _Sed quandam volo nocte nigriorem Formica, pice, Gracculo, cicada._