40 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 
FAMILY MEROPID. 
OT only Seebohm, but Swainson before him, united the Bee-eaters and 
Rollers under one family name; but considering the structural differences 
between the two groups, it is certainly more convenient to keep them separate. 
The Bee-eaters may readily be distinguished from the Rollers by the long 
curved bill, by the short first primary, and by having the central (instead of the 
external) tail-feathers frequently elongated. 
Jerdon says of this family :—‘‘ The Bee-eaters form a group of beautiful birds 
peculiar to the warm regions of the old world, one or two extending in summer 
into the temperate parts. Green is the predominant colour of their plumage, 
varied with blue, yellow, and chestnut. They feed on insects, often on wasps and 
bees, hence their common name in English and other European languages, 
and they always capture them in the air.* They usually crush their insect prey 
when they seize it, killing it at once, and thus do not get stung. Their flight is 
easy and graceful, and at times very rapid. They breed in holes, in banks of 
rivers chiefly. In India they are popularly known as Flycatchers. 
They have a doubly emarginated sternum, a longish heart-shaped tongue, a 
membranous stomach, short intestines, and cceca of the same dimensions as in the 
Cuculine, etc. Their skin is remarkably thick.” 
The wings of the Bee-eaters are long and pointed, with ten primaries as in 
the Rollers, but the bastard primary is very small. There are upwards of thirty 
species of this family, but only one well authenticated species is known to visit 
the British Islands, and only as a straggler to our shores, nevertheless Lord 
Lilford has brought forward evidence, which (although far from conclusive) seems 
to point to the bare possibility of the bird having nested with us on one occasion. 
The nest in its character is not altogether unlike that of the Kingfisher, being 
bored by the bird itself, and consisting of a long tunnel ending in an enlarged 
chamber in which the pure white eggs are laid upon the “castings” or ejected 
indigestible portions of the food of the parent-birds. 
* This is not strictly correct, as they have been seen to pick up insects.—A G.B. 
