ROLLER. 197 



tinent tlie Roller is said to be frequently fouiKl in the 

 thickest and most secluded parts of the forests of Germany ; 

 some of its habits, however, are but imperfectly known ; it is 

 said to be noisy and restless, laying four or five eggs in the 

 hollow of a tree, preferring the birch tree to any other, from 

 which circumstance one of its German nam.es is Birck-heber, 

 or the Birch Jay. The eggs are of a delicately smooth and 

 shining white ; in shape a very short oval, measuring one 

 inch five lines in length, by one inch one line in breadth. 

 The food of the Roller consists of worms, slugs, insects in 

 their various stages, and berries. 



Specimens of the Roller have been killed in two or three 

 instances in Cornwall ; but it does not appear to have been 

 met with in Ireland. This bird has been obtained more fre- 

 quently in our eastern and north-eastern counties. One was 

 killed at Oakington, in Cambridgeshire, in October 1835. 

 Six examples are recorded to have been killed in Suf- 

 folk and Norfolk, the most recent of which occurred in 

 1888. Three or four specimens have been killed in York- 

 shire, the last of which happened at Scarborough in 1833. 

 Mr. Backhouse at Newcastle has a specimen in his col- 

 lection killed in that vicinity, and another is recorded to 

 have been shot at North Shields. Mr. Selby mentions that 

 he had examined one that was found dead in the plantations 

 of Earl Grey in Northumberland ; and the bird figured from 

 by Mr. Selby, in illustration of his own work, was killed at 

 Dunkeld in Perthshire. M'Pherson Grant, Esq. of Edin- 

 burgh, sent me notice of a specimen obtained in the eastern 

 part of Scotland : Sir AVilliam Jardine possesses one that 

 was killed in Orkney ; and Mr. Bullock had in his ISIuseum 

 in London a specimen also killed in Orkney. Mlillcr in- 

 cludes the Roller in his Catalogue of the Birds of Denmark, 

 and Pennant mentions having received a specimen from that 

 country. Professor Nilsson says the Roller is occasionally a 



