THE BEE-EATERb. 
139 
its bright effulgence when examined feather by feather, the Jacamars are by no means con- 
spicuous birds, and at a little distance do not appear nearly so handsome as the common 
starling. 
The color which is most conspicuous in this and among other Jacamars is a bright metallic 
coppery-red, which continually changes to a purplish hue, and irresistibly reminds the 
observer of a copper tea-kettle that has been subjected to the action of fire. The top of the 
head is green, and the breast is marked with the same hue plentifully mixed with the peculiar 
coppery tint which has just been mentioned. The chin is grayish white marked with a few 
brown spots, the chest is dark green and copper, and the wings are also coppery -green, but 
possess a large admixture of blue. The breast is green with a little copper, and the abdomen 
chocolate, marked with a few dark longitudinal dashes. The upper surface of the tail is dark 
shining green, and its under surface is nearly of the same color as the abdomen. The bird is 
quite a little one. 
Or the genus Jacamaralcyon we have a good example in the Three-toed Jacamar. 
This little bird, which is even smaller than the preceding species, possesses none of the 
brilliant hues which decorate the majority of the group, but is clad in colors even more sombre 
than those of the sparrow. The whole of the plumage, with very few exceptions, is of a dark, 
dull, lustreless, sooty-black, beside which the blackbird would look quite brilliant. On a 
closer inspection a dark olive-green reflection is visible on the upper surface of the body and 
tail. The top of the head is marked with two or three chocolate streaks, and there is 
another stripe of the same color drawn from the corner of the mouth towards the back of the 
neck. The flanks are of the same sooty-black as the back, but without the green reflection, 
and the white with a slight rusty-red tinge. The under surface of the tail is a gray brown. 
The (Treat Jacamar, or Broad-billed Lamprotila, as it is sometimes called, is so like 
the kingfishers in form and general outline of contour, that it might easily be mistaken for 
one of those birds by one who had not studied the characteristics of the group with some 
attention. 
In this bird, which evidently forms a link of transition between the Jacamars and the 
Bee-eaters, and whose generic name of Jacamar ops has been given to it in allusion to that 
fact, the beak is extremely broad when compared with the compressed bills of the other 
Jacamars, and the dilated ridge on the upper mandible is distinctly curved. The tail is broad 
and moderately long, and the feathers of the head form a partial crest. The short neck, 
rounded wings, and long bill of this bird give it a great resemblance to the kingfishers, and in 
its attitudes it has a great air of those birds. Like them, it poises itself upon a branch and 
darts down to secure its active prey in its bill, but differs from them in the fact that it feeds 
almost exclusively upon insects, and knows not how to snatch from the stream the scaly 
inhabitants of the waters. 
In its coloring this bird very closely resembles the green Jacamar, which has already been 
described, but does not possess quite so much of the green hue. 
BEE-EATERS. 
The Bee-eaters may at once be distinguished from the jacamars by the shape of the bill, 
which, although somewhat similar in general shape to the beak of those birds, is curved 
instead of straight, and by the formation of the wings, which, instead of being short and 
rounded, are long and pointed, and give to their owners a wonderful command of the air, 
while engaged in chasing their winged prey. Some short bristles overhang the nostrils, and 
the long and broad tail has generally the two outer feathers longer than the others. Their 
