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supply as freely as I can obtain them ; these now, whenever I

can spare the time, are regularly dipped in water, to the

benefit, I think of both the birds.* In the country, during

the summer, many other insects might be obtained. Milk sop

would be good for them, but it is so squeezed and banged

about that nothing remains to be swallowed.


In February, it was suggested by our practical Treasurer :—

“ Have you tried bees?" Singularly enough, I had never so

much as thought of them in connection with my own birds ; but

having received the idea, I soon obtained the bees, and, on

March i, offered the first supply to my unsophisticated babes.

They, not acquainted with them, and accustomed to gulp down

cockroaches without any preliminaries whenever the)^ could get

them, immediately gulped down some bees—and the female got

stung somewhere inside. How the poor bird—all too late—

banged her bill against the perch ! This proves that Bee-eaters

have no power (I have seen the contrary suggested) to resist the

effects of a sting. They make their prey harmless, as already

described, by banging it against their perch, and by passing it

backwards and forwards between their tight-closing mandibles.

For some weeks afterwards, the female would seize the bees and

bang them to atoms, but would rarely swallow them ; and the

male seemed less and less inclined to take them. This was more

than unfortunate, for the change of food would have been most

beneficial ; but they had acquired a taste for other things, and

rejected such plain and simple fare—a caution to parents.

Eventually, however, a happy thought came to my assistance. I

dip the bees in water, and now both birds take them pretty

freely—but never hurriedly as on the first day.


They regularly cast up the indigestible portions of the

cockroaches in the form of black oblong pellets.


In a really good light, the}’’ can pick up a very small

cockroach without difficulty. And, as may readily be imagined,

they are by nature very good “ catches.”


They are exceptionally clean and inoffensive, not causing

the slightest annoyance in the warm dining-room, although

rather untidy, throwing morsels of food about the vicinity of

their cage.


I do not consider them to be specially intelligent.


They seem to be particularly sensitive to cold.


They cannot hop, and have to fly when changing from one


(*). Since I commenced the practice of wetting the cockroaches before.handiug them

to the male, his appetite for grapes has moderated. — K. P.



