128



THE EUROPEAN BEE-EATER.


Afcrops apiastcr.


By Reginald Phillipps.


(Continued from -page 108).


[Note. —The first part of this article had to be published

last month, to accompany the coloured plate, but it was

premature in the sense that my Bee-eaters had not completed

their moult, were not in fact so far advanced as I had supposed.

After moulting the breast feathers (p. 107), to my surprise they

commenced moulting, both together almost to the day, the fore¬

head, cheeks, and throat down to the black line. This throat-line

has now become fairly distinct, so that my statement on page 105

that it is absent in the second as in the first feather of this species

cannot stand. The light colour of the forehead, hitherto a

narrow line of yellow, now extends backwards towards the

crown, but the future colour remains doubtful : at present it is a

light green. The eyes of both the birds remain dark. The ends

of the tail have been somewhat broken, but the elongated central

feathers were, I think, attained at the close of the year, and the

female still retains one perfect elongated specimen, which is but

little longer than the others. The last of the old flights, an

inner secondary, was shed on March 30; they' - have been some

four months moulting these and the tail feathers, just dropping

one or two at uncertain intervals, exemplifying my suggestion

which appeared on page 107. The bills, which are of a dense

dull-black colour, are a good deal longer, a little stouter, and

more decurved than figured at page 105. The black band, also,

which runs from the bill to the ear-tufts, is broader, and

practically in a straight line with the bill.—R. P., April 4, 1902].



In September last I received an affectionate invitation from

a London dealer to come and pay him a visit, as he had a pair of

young Bee-eaters which he thought I might “like to see.”

According to his account, they had been taken from a nest in

Roumania (the}’’ breed along the banks of the Danube) ; and he

had purchased them in Vienna, and had himself brought them to

this country.


This invitation sorely exercised my mind. There had

been a time when the subject of Bee-eaters had been brought

rather prominently before me, and I had even entertained visions

of having them flying about in my aviary as plentifully as

Weavers and breeding as freely as Bengalis ; but I knew enough



