794 ROODEBEC 



from pale turquoise to dark ultramarine — tinted in parts with 

 green. The bird seems to be purely insectivorous. The genus 

 Coracias, for a long while placed by systematists among the Crows, 

 has really no affinity whatever to them, and is now properly con- 



^=: 



Coracias. Eorystomus. 



(After Swainson.) 



sidered to belong to the Picari^, in which it forms the type of the 

 Family Coraciiclse ; and its alliance to the Meropiclse (Bee-eater) and 

 Alceclinidx (Kingfisher) is very evident. Some eleven other 

 species of the genus have been recognized, one of which, C. leuco 

 cephalus or ahyssinus, is said to have occurred in Scotland. India 

 has two species, C. indicus and C. affinis, of which thousands upon 

 thousands are annually destroyed to supply the demand for gaudy 

 feathers to bedizen ladies' dresses. One species, C. iemmindi, seems 

 to be peculiar to Celebes and the neighbouring islands, but other- 

 wise the rest are natives of the Ethiopian or Indian Regions. 

 Allied to Coracias is the genus Eurystomus with some eight species, 

 of similar distribution, but one of them, E. 2y((''iti<-'us, has a Avider 

 extent, for it ranges from Celebes through New Guinea to Tasmania 

 and strays to New Zealand. Madagascar has five or six very remark- 

 able forms, belonging to the genera Bmchypteracias, Geobiastes and 

 Atelornis, which ai^e considered to belong to the Family ; and, 

 according to Prof. A. Milne-Edwards, no doubt shoiild exist on that 

 point. Yet if doubt may be entertained it is in regard to Leptosomvs 

 discolor, with the cognate L. gracilis of the Comoros, which on 

 account of its zygodactylous feet some authorities place among the 

 Cuculidx, while others have considered it the type of a distinct 

 Family Lepfosomatida,'. Brackypteracias and Atelornis present fewer 

 structural dift'erences from the Rollers, and perhaps may be 

 rightly placed with them ; but the species of the latter have long 

 tarsi, and are believed to be of terrestrial habit, Avhich Rollers 

 generally certainly are not. These very curious and in some 

 respects very interesting forms, which are peculiar to Madagascar, 

 are admirably described and illustrated by a series of twenty plates 

 in the screat work of MM. Grandidier and A. Milne-Edwards on 

 that island {Oiscaux, pp. 223-250), while the Family Coraciidm is the 

 subject of a monograph, published in 1893, by Mr. Dresser, as a 

 companion volume to that on the McrojndR'. 



ROODEBEC (Red beak), the colonial name of a bird in South 

 Africa, Estrilda astrild, belonging to the Weaver-birds and akin to 



