THE f 



' . 1TY 

 ^ 



&-EATER. 

 Merops Savigni^ LK V A ILL ANT. 

 PLATE VII. 



Green : front whitish ; ears black ; stripe above and beneath 

 the eye, sky blue ; chin yellow, passing into chestnut ; 

 crown green ; wings and tail glossed with fulvous. 



Merops superciliosus ? Auctorum. Le Guepier Savigny, Le 

 Vaill. pi. 6. bis. 



WE conclude that this Bee-eater has hitherto passed 

 for one of the numerous varieties of the Merops 

 superciliosus of our systems, since we can hardly 

 suppose that a species, apparently by no means un- 

 common in Senegal, should have remained until 

 this day undescribed, or undistinguished by a sepa- 

 rate name. Such, however, appears to be the case ; 

 unless it may be one of those figured in the rare 

 and little known work of Le Yaillant, which we 

 have no means of consulting : this, however, is but 

 of secondary consequence, for Le Vaillant merely 

 gave French names to his birds, leaving the scien- 

 tific one to be imposed by those who undertook to 

 incorporate his discoveries in the systems of the 

 day. Whether this has or has not been done, in 

 regard to the species before us, is almost equally 

 uncertain; the whole genus, as it now stands, is 

 little better than one mass of confusion. The Sy- 



