MEROPID/E. 



283 



THE BEE-EATER. 



Merops apiaster, Linnreus. 



The first British-killed Bee-eater on record was obtained in Nor- 

 folk in ]une 1793, and since that time over thirty examples have 

 been obtained (while many others have been noticed) south of 

 Derbyshire in England and Pembrokeshire in Wales : chiefly on the 

 spring migration. Further north its visits have been rarer. Mr. 

 W. Eagle Clarke mentions a bird picked up exhausted near Filey in 

 Yorkshire on June 9th 1880 ; while in Scotland, one was captured 

 in October 1832 near the Mull of Cialloway, two or three are said 

 to have been taken in the north-east, and one of a couple was shot 

 in Caithness on May 12th 1897. In Ireland, to the south of co. 

 Dublin, this species has occurred on seven or eight occasions, even 

 in small flocks ; six birds having been found resting in a snipe-bog 

 on November 2nd 1892. 



The Bee-eater has wandered as far north as Muonioniska (within 

 the Arctic circle), but its visits to Sweden, Denmark, and Northern 

 ( 'icrmany, are few and irregular, and on Heligoland it has only once 

 been obtained. It is said to have bred in Central and Southern 

 (iermany, as well as near Abbeville in the north of France, while 

 it nests not infrequently in Languedoc and Provence ; but north 

 of the Alps and Carpathians, and of about lat. 55^ in Russia, it 

 only does so exceptionally. In Southern Russia, Turkey, Greece, 



