48 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



delicate green plumage, orange and black markings upon head and throat, and 

 the projecting central tail feathers, which are very conspicuous when flying. 

 Usually pei'ching upon the outstretched dead branch of a gum-tree or a tele- 

 graph lino (if one is handy) it sits on guard, ready to pounce down and snap 

 up any insect flying past its post of observation. Though some writers 

 have specified particular groups of insects as its food, scarcely anything in the 

 insect line comes amiss, and its food is as varied as the insects of the district. 

 When, insect-hunting on the summit of Mount Marmion, in north-west Aus- 

 tralia, I once aroused the interest of a pair of Bee-eaters, which followed me 

 round and snapped up every butterfly or moth that I disturbed from the 

 undergrowth but missed with my net. 



The nesting habit of the birds are peculiar, for they make regular tunnels- 

 with openings no bigger than a mouse hole, into steep river banks. These 

 tunnels are about a yard in length, and open out into little pockets, in which are 

 laid four or five pinkish-white eggs. As an active insectivorous bird and often 

 in sufiicient numbers to make an effective onslaught upon many of our com- 

 mon insect pests, the Bee-eater may be placed in a prominent place in our list. 

 There is, however, another side to its activities, for, as its name implies, this- 

 bird is very fond of honey bees, and in agricultural districts is not regarded 

 with favour. In the Tamworth district bee-keepers look upon the Bee eater 

 as a nuisance, if not a pest, and claim that it is very destructive to honey 

 bees, catching them as they come home to the hive. It is, however, when 

 the work of breeding queen bees is being carried out that this bird does the 

 most serious damage. The Apiarist at Hawkesbury Agricultural College 

 informed me that the losses there due to Bee-eaters are sometimes very serious. 

 A critical period is that just after the wedding flight, when the young queen 

 circles round as if taking her bearings, before turning for home. 



Showing, however, how things tend to right themselves, there was an 

 account in a Victorian newspaper some years ago stating that bee-keepers had 

 welcomed the event of a flock of Bee-eaters into their district, because they 

 had destroyed the large dragon-flies, which had previously been hawking over 

 their bee-hives. Now, both dragon-flies and robber-flies (also bee-killers),, 

 under normal conditions are among our most useful friendly insects, destroy- 

 ing noxious insects, such as mosquitos and other pest flies ; yet this time they 

 in turn were pests to the bee-keepers. 



The White-throated Nightjar {Eurostopus albigularis Vig. & Horsf.). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 96, No. 48 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 107, No. 225. 

 There are two distinct species of this genus confined to Australia and 

 New Guinea. The first, which we figure, ranges over the open forest country 

 of South Australia and the whole of eastern Australia from Victoria to 

 Queensland, and across into New Guinea. The second, Eurostopus argus, 

 the Spotted Nightjar, was described by Gould under the name of Eurostopodus 

 guttatiis, and extends from New South Wales all over Western Australia. 



