Birds. 5599 



time, was on the bare hills, no great distance from the sea : my gun 

 unluckily having missed fire with both barrels, 1 was disappointed in 

 obtaining a specimen at that time, as I had no idea what they were. 

 Early in the next month, however, I shot a specimen, which was not 

 in very good plumage, but was very fat, and I preserved it. An 

 officer, who made a trip along the south coast, told me that he saw a 

 good many, which must have been during the last few days of April, 

 and I observed them in May, and by the end of the month they were 

 numerous on the plains and river valleys between Sebastopol and the 

 Alma. 



If, as is said by former travellers, the South Coast of the Crimea is 

 as mild as Southern Italy, may not many of the birds which leave the 

 steppes and mountainous part of the country on the approach of 

 winter, spend that season there, in a warmer climate than if they 

 crossed the Black Sea to Asia Minor ? A visit to that interesting 

 district during winter would well repay the naturalist, who, I have no 

 doubt, would clear up many points of which we are at present un- 

 certain, and might throw some light on local migration. 



Although the bee-eater is not included among the swallows, yet in 

 habits and motions it approaches very near to some of the tribe : it 

 may be said to be one of those connecting links in the great " chain of 

 Nature" which a human being has not the chance to see in its perfect 

 completeness, but can only imagine it from seeing the less links 

 deficient the more species that are discovered. I had the long-wished- 

 for satisfaction of riding to the Alma and back, a distance of about 

 fifty miles, on a hot day at the end of May, and it chanced to be my 

 last opportunity of observing several species of birds, as, not long after, 

 I left the country ; among them was the bee-eater (Merops apiaster), 

 and I only wish that it was in my power to describe the graceful 

 motions and beautiful appearance of the bird; I thought at the time 

 that it was the nearest to perfection, in flight and plumage combined, 

 that I had ever seen. There were numbers about the rivers Belbec, 

 Katcha and Alma, which we crossed on the way, and at the second I 

 observed some going in and out of holes in the high river bank, 

 evidently their nests : they perched both on the ground and on trees. 

 I remained watching their beautiful motions for some time ; they 

 would at times hang on the wing without an apparent motion : there 

 were numbers about the same place, and I did not observe any pairs 

 separate from the others. I first heard of this bird being seen in the 

 spring, about the 4th of May, when there were numbers in the Valley 

 of the Belbec. 



