THE BEE-EATER. 5 



has evidence of the bird breeding in South Africa. 

 It arrives in August, and remains during our 

 winter months, when it is absent from Europe. 

 In September and October, Mr. Layard found the 

 Bee-eater breeding in great numbers on the Berg 

 River. " It does not," he writes, " always select 

 a bank into which to bore the hole destined for 

 its nest, for we found one flat piece of sandy 

 ground perforated with numberless holes into 

 which the birds were diving and scrambling like 

 so many rats." 



August is the month when the Bee-eater leaves 

 Europe, and thus the bird is one of the earliest 

 southern migrants, and has plenty of time to 

 rear another brood in South Africa. Its migra- 

 tion into Europe takes place during the last days 

 of March and the first days of April, and Colonel 

 Irby, who has studied the arrival of birds at 

 Gibraltar for many seasons, found that for three 

 successive years, the largest influx of these birds 

 took place on the loth of April, which date, he 

 says, " in Spanish fashion, I christened St. 

 Bee-eater's Day." 



To an English naturalist, whose acquaintance 

 with brilliant plumage in our islands begins and 



