204 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



of which quite corresponds with any of my examples. I have 

 also examined specimens received from M. Verreaux, and sent 

 out as typical examples oi M. (Egyptius, M. savignii, and M. chry- 

 socercus ; also one of the latter received from Mr. Layard. I have 

 likewise studied the descriptions, by Layard, Schlegel, Jerdon, 

 Riippell, and others, of the various species above quoted, without 

 being able to arrive at the real distinction between them, if any 

 exist. 



Schlegel, if I remember rightly, considers M. savignii to be 

 the young of M. agyptius ; and if all the Bee-eaters that I have 

 killed belong to one and the same species, he is probably right. 



I am disposed to believe that my specimens include two spe- 

 cies — the one M. (Sgyptius, the other, looking to geographical 

 distribution, possibly M. persicus of Pallas, which is said to breed 

 on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The blue head of the female 

 and the generally bluer hue of the plumage in the latter, com- 

 pared with the yellowish rufous hue which pervades the green 

 of the back of the bird which I take to be M. agyptius, seem 

 to favour this view; while the fact of their all having been shot 

 in company, and that gradations are observable from one state 

 to another, seem to point to their all being different stages of 

 one and the same species. I send a series of males and females, 

 old and young ; and I think that the opportunity may well be 

 taken to give a good plate of these specimens and elucidate the 

 synonymy. 



M. chrysocercus, distiuguished by a yellowish gloss on the tail 

 and black tips to the lengthened feathers, seems distinct from 

 these. 



Whatever their true specific name may turn out to be, their 

 occurrence in considerable numbers in the centre of Northern 

 India, 800 or 900 miles further east than any Bee eaters of this 

 type have yet been noticed, is most remarkable. Mr. A. 0. 

 Hume, who was stationed for four years in Aligurh and Myn- 

 poorie, never obtained this species there, nor indeed had he pre- 

 viously received it from any part of India. He suggests that 

 the famine in Persia may have caused this extraordinary migra- 

 tion, just as he tells me that during the terrible famine in Raj- 

 pootana and Bhutteeanah the field-rats {Ga-bi/lits erythrurus), of 



