BEE-EATER 435 



that of the roller, the present species passing the winter in Africa and 

 north-western India, and in spring spreading itself over the south and 

 central districts of Europe, south-western Asia, and Central Asia as 

 far east as Afghanistan and Kashmir. On the other hand, it never 

 apparently breeds so far north in Europe as does the roller, although 

 the British Museum possesses eggs from Sarepta and the Volga valley 

 in southern Russia. 



Although only an occasional visitor to the British Islands, where 

 it is met with more frequently in the south of England during spring 



HE ROWLAND WARD STUDIOS 



BEE-EATEK (MALE). 



than elsewhere, the bee-eater, when it makes its appearance, not 

 unfrequentl)^ does so in parties. For instance, so many as twenty 

 are recorded to have been seen together in Norfolk, and eleven or 

 twelve were taken in a single locality in Cornwall on the same day 

 in the year 1828 ; three were shot out of a flock in Somersetshire in 

 the spring of 1869, and the same number out of a party of seven in 

 Cork in April 1878 ; in the autumn of 1892 one was killed out of a 

 flock of six in Wicklow, while three were seen in Pembrokeshire in 

 yiRy 1896, and the same number in Yorkshire in September 1905. 

 These latter, of which one was killed, were exploiting a beehive in a 

 garden. With such records it would be little use attempting to give a 

 list of all the occurrences of the species in the British Islands ; and it 

 will suffice to mention, as indicative of its occasional appearance in the 



