MF.ROPID.E. 



73 



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THE BEE-EATER. 



Merops apiaster, Linnaeus. 



The first British-killed Bee-eater on record was obtained in Nor- 

 folk in June 1793, and since that time over thirty examples have 

 been noticed south of Derbyshire in England, and Pembrokeshire 

 in Wales — chiefly on the spring migration. Further north its visits 

 have been very rare ; Mr. W. E. Clarke mentions a bird picked up 

 exhausted near Filey in Yorkshire on June 9th i88c ; and in 

 Scotland one was captured in October 1832 near the Mull of 

 Galloway, while two or three are said to have been taken in the 

 north-east of the country. In Ireland it has occurred five or six 

 times, chiefly in the south. 



On the Continent its northerly range is not, as a rule, so extensive 

 as that of the Roller; and although it has been known to push 

 its excursions to Muonioniska, within the Arctic circle, yet its visits 

 to Sweden, Denmark, and Northern Germany, are few and irregular, 

 and on Heligoland it has only once been obtained. It is said to have 

 bred in Central and Southern Germany, and near Abbeville in the 

 north of France, while it nests not unfrequently in Languedoc and 

 Provence ; but north of the Alps and the Carpathians, and of 

 about lat. 55° in Russia, it only does so exceptionally. In Southern 

 Russia, Turkey, Greece, along the valley of the Danube, and in 

 Southern Italy, the Bee-eater is abundant ; and in the Spanish 



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