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like ; but Seebohm could not have known much about the

matter, for he adds : — " Naumann asserts that caged birds, when

given any vegetable matter to eat, die from its effects ; but this-

requires further confirmation." How far modern writers have

taken their ideas from one another I will not pause to consider,

but one, whom we all respect, riOw passed away, seems to have

taken his ideas all ready formed to the bird ; and his evidence is

consequently all the more valuable. He is quoted in " British

Birds with their Nests and Eggs " as follows : — " We once

discovered some remains of figs in the stomach of a bird of this

species, but imagine that the}^ were swallowed unintentionally with

some insect food." From what I have seen, I should think that

natural fig would be a very likely food for the Roller to partake

of; and the fig tree the bird seems rather to have a liking for. I

have more than once seen one of a pair I now have pick up and

eat odd pieces of dried fig. Several writers tell us that the

Roller feeds on frogs, one adding " smaller mammalia " ; and

another says, " It also frequents broad stretches of reeds, on

which it is said to perch on the look-out for the frogs below."

To say the least, these statements are misleading : they give one

to understand that the Roller is so far a rapacious bird that it has

the power to tear up its prey ; but it has no such power, although

likely enough it may swallow baby frogs, and also possibly— not

probably — juvenile mice, if not afraid of them ; the sight of a

live mouse would scare my Rollers out of their seven senses. A

mouse cut up, however, and a callow young bird, would probably

be good for a Roller in captivity. The power of the Roller is

in its beak ; and it seizes its prey in a vice-like grip, sometimes

banging it against its perch with great violence. Moreover, to

infer that a Roller would willingly perch upon a reed, and plunge

down amongst the reeds after a frog, is to misrepresent its nature.

It is, in a sense, a heavy clumsy bird amongst foliage ; it cannot

hop from perch to perch but must use its wings, and greatly dis-

likes going where the tips of its long wings may flap against any

thing. It likes to perch on a substantial bough, a bare, dead one

from preference, on rocks, large stones, or on some open, solid,,

raised seat, from which it may look down for beetles, locusts,,

grasshoppers, or other large insects, on which it will swiftly dive

from its watch-post, often returning to the same place. But the

statement that it will perch on a reed, even on such gigantic

reeds as one meets with in Kgypt, is rather difficult to under-

stand. It rarely stops on the ground longer than is necessary

for seizing and swallowing its prey ; all the same I quite fail to

see that on the ground it is "very clumsy," " grotesque," "hops



