118 BOMBAY DUCKS 
is Coracias garruda, the European form. This bird some- 
times visits the hospitable shores of Old England, where 
it is promptly shot by the bird-collector; but, as a set-off 
to this treatment, its appearance is recorded in the news- 
papers. 
According to books on ornithology, the bird has 
been noticed in England “about a hundred times since 
it was first recorded by Religio Medici Browne in 1644.” 
In other words, a hundred specimens of the bird have 
been shot in England, and probably not one in ten of 
the hundred slayers could have told you anything about 
the habits of the bird from personal observation. 
Burma boasts of her own special blue jay, known to 
science as Covactas affinis. It resembles the Indian 
species very closely, and, were it not rank heresy to say 
so, I should feel inclined to maintain that the Burmese 
bird is but a variety of the Indian one. Certain it is 
that the two species interbreed freely. 
Lastly, there is the broad-billed roller—a beautiful 
green and blue bird with vermilion beak and legs. It - 
inhabits leafy forests and does not visit towns. This 
genus, like the other, exhibits local variations, and one 
ornithologist tried to make three species out of it, and 
had he been allowed to have his own way he might 
have made a dozen more; but the majority of zoologists 
stoutly resisted temptation. The result is, that instead 
of our having a number of species of broad-billed 
roller, so alike that it would need a committee of 
experts to distinguish one from another, we have one 
species only, which can be recognized at sight. 
