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insects. The\' are usually seen in flocks, which are 

 often of very large size ; this especially applies to the 

 Red Bee-eaters (jmbicics), which certainly spend more 

 of their time on the wing than do their congeners, 

 and are more in evidence at bush-fires, where they 

 always swarm to prey on the clouds of insests driven 

 up by the advancing flames. The Red Bee-eaters are 

 also more common along the actual river-edge than 

 the others, which seem to prefer drier, if not 

 absolutely arid, situations. 



They all lay white eggs in holes in banks ; 

 specimens which I have seen were those of the Red 

 species, which came from a colony of nests, — holes as 

 deep as those used by Kingfishers — in a dry mud-cliff 

 not far from the river. 



BARBETS {^Capito7iidce). Three or four species 

 belonging to three genera are, I believe, found in 

 Gambia, but of these only two are at all commonly 

 seen, namely, the large Groove-billed Barbet Pogono- 

 rhy7ichzis dicbhis), and a smaller bird, which I take to be 

 the Dwarf Barbet {Barbatula mhiutd). Of these the 

 first is a robustly built bird, (about the size of a 

 Thrush), with a powerful pink beak surrounded by 

 black bristles : a beak well adapted for opening the 

 hard wild figs, berries, and other fruits, on which it 

 feeds. Its colours are distinctly gaudy : black above 

 with a white mantle, and crimson below from throat 

 to rump, except for a broad black pectoral band and 

 yellow patches on the sides of the bod3^ They are 

 therefore among the most conspicuous of the denizens 

 of the bush up-country or of the Bathurst gardens, in 

 each of which they are equally common, generally 

 going about in pairs and being by no means shy or 

 inclined to skulk among thick foliage, like so many 

 brightly coloured birds, but, on the other hand, 

 apparently delighting in flaunting their red and black 

 plumage everywhere, and to ever}^ possible spectator. 



