PICARIAN BIRDS AND PARROTS OF CEYLON. Pa) | 
All species feed on insects, chiefly bees and wasps, which 
they capture on the wing with an audible snap of the beak. 
They generally keep a lookout for their prey from a perch 
on a telegraph wire, railing, or twig, and after making a short 
swoop return to their starting pomt. The nest is a small 
unlined chamber at the end of a long burrow excavated in the 
bank of a river or roadside ditch. At times the little tunnel 
is driven at a gentle slope into almost level ground. The eggs 
are white, glossy, and nearly globular. Three species are 
found in Ceylon; one is migratory, two belong to the genus 
Merops, one is a Melittophagus. 
Rough Key to Ceylon Meropide. 
A.—Middle pair of tail feathers in adults much longer than 
the others. Genus Merops. 
(a) Wing 3°65; chin and throat bluish-green. 
Merops viridis (Common Indian Bee-eater). 
(b) Wing 5°25; chin yellow, throat chestnut. 
M. philippinus (Blue-tailed Bee-eater). 
B.—Middle pair of tail feathers not elongated. Genus 
Melittophagus. 
Wing 4°2; chin and throat saftron-yellow, fore-neck 
chestnut. 
M. swinhoii (Chestnut-headed Bee-eater). 
Merops viripis (Blanford, Vol. IIIL., p. 110; 
Legge, p. 309). 
The Common Indian Bee-eater. 
Description—Upper vlumage green with a bronze tinge, 
most pronounced on the crown and nape, which at times are 
almost golden-brown ; tertiaries, rump, and tail coverts often 
washed. with greenish-blue. Wing quills pale rufous on the 
inner, and greenish-bronze on the outer webs, the tips and 
shafts black ; tail bronze-green, the outer half of the long 
central feathers and the tips of the remainder black. There 
is a black band from the nostrils through the eye to the ear 
