MEROPIDA. 283 
THE BEE-EATER. 
MErops aspridsTER, Linnzus. 
The first British-killed Bee-eater on record was obtained in Nor- 
folk in June 1793, and since that time over thirty examples have 
been obtained (while many others have been noticed) south of 
Derbyshire in England and Pembrokeshire in Wales: chiefly on the 
spring migration. Further north its visits have been rarer. Mr. 
W. Eagle Clarke mentions a bird picked up exhausted near Filey in 
Yorkshire on June 9th 1880; while in Scotland, one was captured 
in October 1832 near the Mull of Galloway, two or three are said 
to have been taken in the north-east, and one of a couple was shot 
in Caithness on May 12th 1897. In Ireland, to the south of co. 
Dublin, this species has occurred on seven or eight occasions, even 
in small flocks ; six birds having been found resting in a snipe-bog 
on November 2nd 1892. 
The Bee-eater has wandered as far north as Muonioniska (within 
the Arctic circle), but its visits to Sweden, Denmark, and Northern 
Germany, are few and irregular, and on Heligoland it has only once 
been obtained. It is said to have bred in Central and Southern 
Germany, as well as near Abbeville in the north of France, while 
it nests not infrequently in Languedoc and Provence; but north 
of the Alps and Carpathians, and of about lat. 55° in Russia, it 
only does so exceptionally. In Southern Russia, Turkey, Greece, 
