142 
A Holiday i?i the West Indies. 
kind ; for instance, the Glass Eye (Merula jamaicensis), a thrush 
with eyes like julass, became fairly common about 3,()U0 feet up, 
they much resemble our Redwing in action, appearing to feed 
more on berries than insects, and are usually seen in the trees and 
not much on the ground. Gosse, in Birds of Jamaica," says he 
has never found any animal substance in the stomach of tliis 
species, although he examined several ; it is also called the 
Shine-eye or Fish-eye. 
We now came to a part of the road which was entirely 
washed away, and with a sheer rise of ">() feet on one side and a 
gully of greater depth on the other side ; we were compelled to 
make a halt, and send to Newcastle for help, to enable ns to get 
the ponies over the road, and with the aid of a few soldiers, we 
soon made the road sufficiently safe to lead the ponies across, imd 
I was very pleased indeed when I got my pony over safely. 
(I'd be continued.) 
* This name is used rather promiscuously for many species in the West Indies. Ed. 
The Birds of Gambia. 
By E. HOPKINSON. D.S.O.. M.A., M.B. 
(Conihiued fnim p. 115.) 
MEROPIDAE. 
The BEE-EATERS are smaller and more graceful birds than their 
cousins the Rollers, and like them are common all over Africa. From their 
name one would su])]iose that their chief food would consist mainly of bees, 
but many of them, particularly the Red and the Dwarf Bee-eaters, seem to 
feed largely on other kinds of insects. We have in the Gambia representa- 
tives of the three genera Dicrocercus, in which the tail is deeply forked, 
Melittophagus with square tails, and Merops whose tails are square but have 
the two central feathers prolonged to an inch or more beyond the rest. 
Dicrocercus furcatus. SWALLOW-TAILED BEE-EATER. 
Raiir/e. West Africa, Senegambia to (raboon ; North-east Africa. (ff.L.) 
Green above shading into blue on the rump ; tail blue washed with 
green and tipped with white ; below throat yellow remainder of under 
snrface green ; vmder surface of wings chestnut : bill black ; legs brown ; 
iris le 1. Length about 8| inches. 
I do not think that this can be a common species here ; the few I have 
seen, easily recognisable by their tails, have been odd ones (I should think on 
migration), at Cape St. Mary and other places in Kombo along the sea- 
coast. 
Of the next genus there are four species which shonld be founil in the 
Gand-iia ; of these I know I wo well. 
