MEBOPS. Ill 



Distribution. Common and resident almost throughout India, 

 Ceylon, and Burma. Wanting in the Himalayas, where this 

 species rarely occurs, even in the lower ranges, though there are 

 specimens from Kashmir and Murree in the Hume Collection. 

 Absent also as a rule on the higher hills of the Peninsula, and in 

 some of the denser and damper forests. In Ceylon M. viridis 

 is only found in the drier parts of the low country. In Tenasserim 

 it has not been observed south of Mergui, and it does not occur 

 in the Malay Peninsula nor in the Andamans or Mcobars, 

 though it is found in Siarn and Cochin Chiua. West of India 

 it extends through Baluchistan and Southern Persia to North- 

 eastern Africa. 



Habits, <$fc. One of the commonest and most familiar of Indian 

 birds ; a resident in general, but locally migratory in some places : 

 thus it is said to leave the island of Bombay from April till 

 September. It has the usual habits of Bee-eaters, but generally 

 prefers a lower perch than the larger species ; it lives on various 

 insects, usually captured in the air, and it has a pleasant whistling 

 note. It breeds from the middle of March till the beginning of 

 June, and lays from 3 to 5 eggs at the end of a hole which it digs 

 to a depth of 1 to 5 feet, usually in a bank or cliff. The eggs 

 are spherical ovals, white and glossy, and measure about *78 

 by '7. 



1027. Merops philippinus. The Blue-tailed Bee-eater. 



Merops philippinus, Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. xiii (Vindob.}, i, p. 183 

 (1767) ; Jerdon. Madr. Jour. L. S. xi, p. 228; Blyth, Cat. p. 52; 

 Horsf. $ M. Cat. p. 86 : Walden, Tr. Z. S. viii, p. 42 ; Hume, 

 S. F. iii, p. 456; iv, pp. 36, 287; xi, p. 42; id. Cat. no. 118; 

 Blyth $ Wald. Birds Burm. p. 72 ; Hume 8f Dav. S. F. vi, 

 pp. 67, 498 ; Ball, S. F. vii, p. 203 ; Cripps, ibid. p. 258 ; Legge, 

 Birds Ceyl. p. 306 ; Douj, S. F. viii, p. 370 ; Vidal, S. F. ix, p. 49 ; 

 Binyham, ibid. p. 152 ; Butler, ibid. p. 381 ; Davison, S. F. x. 

 p. 350 ; Gates, B. B. ii, p. 66 ; Dresser, Mon. Mer. p. 55, pi. xv ; 

 Barnes, Birds Bom. p. 94 ; Littledale, Jour. Bomb. N. H. Soc. i, 

 pp. 31, 196 ; Oates in Hume's N. $ E. 2nd ed. iii, p. 63; Sharpe, 

 Cat. B. M. xvii, p. 71. 



Merops philippensis, Jerdon, B. I. i, p. 207 ; Ball, S. F. i, p. 57 ; 

 Anderson, Yunnan Exp., Aves, p. 581. 



Merops daudini, Cuv. Kegne Anim. Nouv. ed. i, p. 442 (1829), 

 descr. nulla ; Hume, S. F. ii, p. 162 ; iii, p. 49. 



Bar a patrinya, II.; Komu passeriki, Tel. ; Huet-pasin-to, Burm. 



Coloration. Lores and a streak past the eye to the ear-coverts 

 black, bordered above by a narrow pale verditer-blue supercilium 

 and below by a broader blue line. Upper parts to rump, including 

 the wing-coverts, green with a rufous tinge passing into the 

 verditer-blue of the rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail ; tertiaries 

 also sometimes bluish ; middle pair of tail-feathers with elongate 

 black tips, and all tail-feathers dark brown beneath : wing-feathers 

 more rufous green than the back, all except the tertiaries tipped 

 with black, the outer webs bluish or brighter greenish towards 



