704 ROODEBEC 
from pale turquoise to dark ultramarine—tinted in parts with 
green. ‘The bird seems to be purely insectivorous. The genus 
Giga for a long while placed by systematists among the Chom, 
has re eally no affinity whatever to them, and is now properly con- 
CoRACIAS. > EuRYSTOMUS. 
(After Swainson.) 
sidered to belong to the PIcARr&, in which it forms the type of the 
Family Coraciidx ; and its alliance to the Meropidx (BEE-HATER) and 
Alcedinide (KINGFISHER) is very evident. Some eleven other 
species of the genus have been recognized, one of which, C. leuco- 
cephalus or abyssinus, is said to have occurred in Scotland. India 
has two species, C. indicus and C. affinis, of which thousands upon 
thousands are annually destroyed to supply the demand for gaudy 
feathers to bedizen ladies’ dresses. One species, C. femminchi, seems 
to be peculiar to Celebes and the neighbouring islands, but other- 
wise the rest are natives of the Ethiopian or Indian Regions. 
Allied to Coracias is the genus Eurystomus with some eight species, 
of similar distribution, but one of them, /. pacificus, has a wider 
extent, for it ranges from Celebes through. New Guinea to Tasmania 
and strays to New Zealand. Madagascar has five or six very remark- 
able forms, belonging to the genera brachypteracias, Geobiastes and 
Atelornis, which are considered to belong to the Family; and, 
according to Prof. A. Milne-Edwards, no doubt should exist on that 
point. Yet if doubt may be entertained it is in regard to Leptosomus 
discolor, with the cognate L. gracilis of the Comoros, which on 
account of its zygodactylous feet some authorities place among the 
Cuculidx, while others have considered it the type of a distinct 
Family Leptosomatide. Brachypteracias and Atelornis present fewer 
structural differences from the Rollers, and perhaps may be 
rightly placed with them; but the species of the latter have long 
tarsi, and are believed to be of terrestrial habit, which Rollers 
generally certainly are not. These very curious and in some 
respects very interesting forms, which are peculiar to Madagascar, 
are admirably described and illustrated by a series of twenty plates 
in the great work of MM. Grandidier and A. Milne-Edwards on 
that island (Oiseaua, pp. 223-250), while the Family Coracidex is the 
subject of a monograph, published in 1893, by Mr. Dresser, as a 
companion volume to that on the Meropide. 
ROODEBEC (Red beak), the colonial name of a bird in South 
Africa, Estrilda astrild, belonging to the WEAVER-BIRDS and akin to 
