COMMON BEE-EATER. 323 
below, they were most conspicuous and handsome birds. As we examined 
their nest-holes, they often uttered a note resembling whirr, whirr -rup, or 
whip, as the cry was prolonged or cut short. They seemed to have 
favourite perching-places, which were white with their droppings, and on 
one we found half a dozen castings of beetles’ wing-cases, &e. 
The food of the Bee-eater seems exclusively composed of various kinds 
of insects, especially bees, wasps, locusts, and beetles. It is much disliked 
by the bee-keeper, and in some cases whole hives are despoiled through 
its incessant watch for their inhabitants as they pass to and fro. Its food 
is principally captured on the wing ; but it not unfr equently searches for 
it on the ground, or picks it from the leaves and twigs. Irby attributes 
the Bee-eater’s rather early departure from Gihatae in the autumn to 
the fact that the flowers are off bloom, the bees have ceased to work, and 
its principal food is no longer obtainable. 
Of the habits of this bird in Algeria, Dixon writes as follows :—“ We 
met with the Bee-eater specially abundant at Biskra, evidently on migra- 
tion from its winter-quarters. It was indeed a charming sight to see 
these birds in scores gliding gracefully over the tall palms or resting on 
the dead leaf-stems, their brilliant colours coming out in bold relief against 
the dark-green vegetation. In their flight they put me much in mind of 
Swifts ; but their actions were slower and the birds themselves rather shy. 
I have frequently seen them glide about for several minutes without any 
perceptible motion of the wings. The only place in which we saw them in 
this oasis was the ruins of the large government garden—a place full of 
luxuriant vegetation and swarming with birds. They were busy hawking 
for insects and mingling with Swifts and Swallows. The Blue-cheeked 
Bee-eater also consorts with the present species, ‘but is a much rarer bird.” 
Almost directly after their arrival at their breeding-grounds, the Bee- 
eaters set to work excavating their holes. Many pairs of birds nest side 
by side, and a bank is often as much tunnelled by them as it is by Sand- 
Martins. They seem to make a fresh hole every year. Their long 
slender bill is chiefly employed in this work of excavation, and, according 
to Irby, is often worn down to half its usual length by the process! Some- 
times the bird tunnels ‘as much as eight or nine feet into the solid bank ; 
and Irby says that if a bank is not available, it will bore almost straight 
down into the ground. Sometimes the passage is rather irreguiar, and the 
first chamber is occasionally connected by a narrow passage with a second. 
The Bee-eater is a late breeder. When at Kustendji last year, in company 
with Mr. Young, I dug out, on the 15th of June, half a dozen of their 
nests from the old Russian trenches formed during the last war between 
that power and Turkey ; they were from two to four feet from the surface, 
and penetrated about four feet into the ground, nearly straight and nearly 
horizontal. Two of the nests we dug out contained eggs, one four and 
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