THE AUSTRALIAN BEE-EATER. 181 



CHAPTER CIII. 



THE AUSTRALIAN BEE-EATER. 

 (Merops ornatus, Latham. ) 



A remarkably handsome bird unlike, especially in 

 color, any other of our Australian birds. The general 

 plumage of this bird is a beautiful golden green and 

 azure blue, the feathers of the throat being a deep yellow. 

 Length of bird, according to Mr. Campbell, ten inches, 

 including the tail (six inches) and bill (one and a half 

 inches). The tail feathers, as shown on the plate, are of 

 a peculiar shape and color. 



The habits of this bird are partially migratory, birds 

 being fairly plentiful in some of the north and 

 north-eastern parts of the State. They appear in 

 September, and, according to Mr. Campbell and other 

 ornithologists, leave again in March. The eggs, usually 

 five in number, are deposited in holes made in the sandy 

 banks of rivers, the young birds being fairly strong 

 about the middle of January. This bird seems to like 

 the heat, as, on the hottest days (112 degrees in the 

 shade) I have seen then in numbers, when driving from 

 Rutherglen to Chiltern, in the north-eastern part of 

 Victoria. When I saw them they were very active, 

 and busily engaged in catching insects when on the 

 wing. The Bee-eater has a bad reputation among 

 apiarists in Victoria, as being a great destroyer of bees ; 

 but the strictly insectivorous nature of the bird, renders 

 it much more valuable than many people imagine. 



I have seen the holes, in which the young are reared, 

 strewn with the remains of bee-moths, plant-bugs, moths, 

 etc., and here and there the remains of an odd bee ; 

 still it may be that the parent birds dissect the bees 



