CHAPTER VIII. 



INSESSORES (Perchers). Continued. 

 FISSIROSTRES (Wide-billed). 



THIS last tribe of the great order of Perchers is by far the smallest 

 of the four, for though it contains more families than the Climbers, 

 viz., the Bee-eaters, Kingfishers, Swallows and Goatsuckers, yet 

 two of these are represented in this country by one single species 

 only, and the whole tribe numbers but eight individuals known in 

 Wiltshire. The word ' Fissirostres ' (wide-billed or cloven-beaked) 

 describes at once their chief characteristic, and indeed if we 

 closely examine those species in which this peculiarity is most 

 developed, viz., the common swift and the night-jar, we shall be 

 surprised to see to what an immense width the gape extends, and 

 how apparently disproportionate to the size of the head is the 

 enormous extent of the capacious mouth and throat, though 

 these are admirably adapted to their habits of feeding on the 

 wing and capturing flies and moths, as in a net, in their rapid 

 career through the air. Their feet, being little required for use, 

 are generally small and weak, and their flight is peculiarly smooth 

 and easy, gliding as they do with outstretched pinions, with 

 apparently little or no effort, and with surprising speed, and pro- 

 tracting their aerial rambles, as if they were incapable of 

 fatigue. 



MEROPID.E (THE BEE-EATERS). 



In my former papers on the Ornithology of Wilts, written above 

 twenty years ago, I was obliged to omit this family, as no reliable 



