MASON AND LEFROTf. 159 



Europeans in order to send one or two wings home, and they are 

 sent home not declared, or falsely declared. From what I have 

 seen I do not imagine that more than one out of six pairs of wings 

 ever sees the destination for which they were originally obtained. 

 Some specimens are not good enough, while others are put away 

 forgotten, and eventually thrown away. It is against this that 

 protection is required. 



1023. Ooracias ajfinis.- -Burmese "Roller. Eating a young 

 bulbul, it bad apparently killed. B. N. H. S. J., XV1L 193. 

 Macdonald. 



1024. Coracias g-irrula. European Roller. In -Asia it fee^s 

 cbiefly on beetles. Jerd. B. I., II, 219. 



1025. Eurystomus orientalis. Broai-billed Roller. Termites, 

 B. N. H. S. J., XII, 560. 



Insects on Ground.- In confinement eats plantains. F. I., III. 

 108. " Stated to take its prey more on the wing than the common 

 rollers. Layard says that it clings to trees like a woodpecker 

 and that he saw it tearing away the decayed wood round a hole 

 in a dead tree. Their stomachs were, says he, full of wood-boring 

 Coieoptera, swallowed whole, merely a Httle crushed and I sa\\ 

 them be-at their food against the trees Ooleoptera m its stomach. 

 Jeod. B. I., i, 220. 



Broad billed rollers. Termites. B. N. H. S. J., VII, 417. 



MEROPID^E. 

 BEE-EATERS. 



They feed on insects, often on wasps and bees, a ad hence their 

 common name in English and other European languages, and they 

 always capture them in the air. They usually crush their insect 

 prey when they seize it, killing it at once and thus do not get 

 stung. Jerd. B. I., I, 204. 



Termites. Jerd. B. I., I, 292. 



They crush or beat the insect against their perch before 

 swallowing it. F. I., Ill, 110. 



