8 THE BEE-EATER. 



eave, and the Sand- Martin burrows out a tunnel 

 in a friable sand-bank. 



Like their relations, the Kingfishers, the Bee- 

 eaters adopt the latter method, and at the end of 

 a long self-hewn tunnel they lay their eggs, but 

 make no nest whatever. In the nest-chamber, at 

 the end of the long tunnel, the eggs are laid on 

 the bare soil, while gradually there accumulates 

 a foetid mass of fish-bones and pellets, in the case 

 of the Kingfishers, and, in that of the Bee-eaters, 

 a conglomeration of wing-cases of Jbeetles and 

 the indigestible portion of the bees and wasps on 

 which the birds feed. 



The curved and slender bills of the Bee-eaters 

 suffer greatly from the labours of excavating the 

 tunnels, and become much worn away and 

 reduced in size. Luckily for the birds, the bill is 

 an organ which quickly grows again to its former 

 length, and this must be a great advantage to the 

 Bee-eater, which has before it the task of a fresh 

 tunnelling operation when it reaches South Africa. 

 The holes in river-banks in the South of Spain 

 are often hollowed out to a depth of eight or nine 

 feet, and Colonel Irby states that when suitable 

 banks are not available, the birds excavate holes 



