CORACIAS GARRULUS 51 



Family COEACIID.E. 



CORACIAS GARRULUS, LinnEeus. 



EOLLEE. 



Coracias garrula, Linn. Syst. Nat. i, p. 159 (1766) ; Mallierbe, Cat. Rais. 



d'Ois. Alg. p. 9 (1846) ; Loclie, E.vpl. Set. Alg. Ols. ii, p. 88 (1867) ; 



Koenig, J. f. 0. 1888, p. 167 ; id. J. f. 0. 1892, p. 369 ; Whitaker, Ibis, 



1895, p. 103; Erlanger, J.f. 0. 1900, p. 13. 

 C. garrulus, Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mas. xvii, p. 15. 



Description. — Adult male, spring, from El Kef, North Tunisia. 



Forehead and chin whitisli ; crown and nape pale greenish-hliie ; mantle 

 and scapulars cinnamon-brown ; lower back and rump ultramarine-blue ; 

 upper tail-coverts, and the two central rectrices dull bluish-green, the other 

 tail-feathers dark greenish-blue, tipped with pale blue, the two exterior 

 rectrices with a small dark patch on their tips ; quills black, glossed on 

 their outer webs with dull blue ; the outer secondaries bluish-black, the 

 innermost secondaries dull chestnut ; greater and median wing-coverts pale 

 greenish-blue, the least wing-coverts rich ultramarine-blue ; uaderparts pale 

 greenish-blue. 



Iris hazel ; bill blackish ; feet yellow-brown. 



Total length 12-50 inches, wing 8, culmen 1-30, tarsus '90. 



Adult female similar to the male. 



Observations. — Occasionally the outermost pair of rectrices project 

 beyond the others, and I have seen a specimen in which these feathers 

 were at least half an inch longer than the rest. 



This handsome species is exceedingly plentiful throughout the 

 Regency during the spring passage, the first arrivals being generally 

 observed soon after the beginning of April, after which date these 

 birds are constantly to be seen throughout the remainder of the 

 spring, and until the end of summer, when they return southward. 

 Considerable numbers of Rollers breed in North and Central Tunisia, 

 but so far as I am aware, not in the more southern districts of the 

 Regency. 



In Algeria and Marocco the species is as abundant as it is in 

 Tunisia, and has been found breeding by Mr. Meade-Waldo in the 

 Maroccan Atlas, at an elevation of over 6,000 feet above sea-level 

 (Ibi.s, 1903, p. 212). 



