BEE-EATER. 
as the description applies, save that of the tail-feathers, and the coloration 
“chesnut” seems due to a pure error as only one rare Bee-eater has the 
tail so coloured, and this one was quite unknown in Latham’s time. 
When Sharpe discussed the Watling drawings, under No. 84 he 
wrote : “ Latham described this species from a specimen in the collection 
of General Davies, but he mentions a figure as being among ‘ Mr. Lambert’s 
collection of drawings.’ The figure in Latham’s work is an impossible one, 
whereas Walling’s figure is by no means bad. He gives the following 
note : ‘ The same size as the bird this drawing was taken from ; the 
colours are more brilliant. Native name Dee-weed-gang. ' ” 
Captain S. A. White has written me as follows : “ The Bee-eater was 
a spring and summer migrant to the Reedbeds in years gone by. Fifteen 
or twenty years ago there was never a summer passed without seeing 
many of the Bee-eaters, now I have heard them once only in the last ten 
years. I have met with these birds all over the country of the Mac- 
Donnell Ranges, but strange to say did not meet with the bird in the 
far North-west Expedition of 1914, yet found them numerous in the sand- 
hills brodering the Nullarbor plain. This bird is not only hkened to the 
rainbow in coloration, but it has the most exquisite flight. They burrow 
into the ground and lay up to six round eggs, perfectly white.” 
Mr, Thos. P. Austin has written me ; “ The Bee-eater is a very common 
species throughout the summer months ; they prefer the more open river 
flats, more especially where the timber is dead, to the thick forest country, 
but their most favoured situation is near post and rail fences on sandy 
soil, in which they start to make their mouse-like nesting holes soon after 
they arrive : in this district, Cobbora, New South Wales, they usually 
choose a perfectly flat piece of ground, or on the side of an old dug-out. 
but fiUed-in, rabbit burrow. I have never known them to nest in a bank 
of any description. Their nesting burrows always slope downwards, the 
egg-chamber generally being at least a foot beneath the surface, and 
about three feet from the entrance. Like with the rabbit burrows, I 
often wonder what becomes of all the dug-out soil, as very little is to be 
seen outside the entrance, seldom more than what could be held in 
the two hands, and yet the egg-chamber alone is about the size of a 
large cocoanut. All the nests I have examined containing eggs, have 
been during the months of November and December, and always four 
or five eggs to a clutch. By the time the yoimg are half feathered, the 
cavity containing them has a thick lining of beetles’ wing cases, legs, 
etc., etc. Its food consists of all kinds of flying beetles and insects, most 
of which are obtained while on the wing. They will perch on a fence. 
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