294 Meropidce. 



hot valley of Jordan, not far from the Dead Sea. ' For several 

 successive evenings ' (he says) ' great flocks of Rollers mustered 

 shortly before sunset, on some dom trees near the fountain, with 

 all the noise, but without the decorum, of rooks. After a volley 

 of discordant screams, a few of the birds would start from their 

 perch and commence a series of somersaults overhead, somewhat 

 after the fashion of tumbler pigeons. In a moment or two they 

 would be followed by the whole flock, and these gambols would be 

 repeated for a dozen times or more. In about a week they dis- 

 persed to excavate the bank for their nests, and after this 

 dispersal not a Roller came back to the ddm trees where they 

 had roosted at first. The sand-beetles were their favourite food, 

 and they were scattered over all the wooded districts.'* In France 

 it is, as with us, Le Rollier, and in Portugal Rollieiro ; but in 

 Germany it is Blaue Racke, ' Blue Roller,' and in Spain Carranco. 

 Coracias is simply Kopaxtas, ' a kind of chough/ in Aristotle ; 

 ' like a crow/ from /copal;. 



113. BEE-EATER (Merops apiaster). 



I have but one instance of a visit of this beautiful bird to Wilt- 

 shire, and that was reported to me by the Rev. G. Powell. It appears 

 that on May 4th, 1866, a mason named Turner, engaged in the exer- 

 cise of his calling on the estate of Mr. Temple, of Bishopstrow, near 

 Warminster, observed a bird of strange appearance and brilliant 

 plumage, amusing itself in a neighbouring orchard in catching 

 insects, and retiring with them again and again to the same 

 branch, against which it each time knocked its bill before 

 swallowing its prey. For some time the mason contented himself 

 with watching the bird from the roof of the cottage, where he was 

 repairing the tiles, till at length, attracted by the strange beauty 

 of the bird, he sent for a gun and shot it from the spot where he 

 was at work. Mr. Powell adds that the specimen thus secured 

 was a very fine male bird, in most brilliant plumage, and was 

 quite alone when shot. The Bee-eater is a native of Southern 



* Canon Tristram on the ' Ornithology of Palestine/ in Ibis for 1866, 

 p. 81. 



