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all leave when the rains begin. They principally haunt those places where there is a small open 
grassy spot on the sea-shore, associating in flocks of ten or twelve, and are extremely shy and difficult 
to approach ; they sail in circles with the flight of a small hawk, sometimes at a great height, and 
sometimes close to the grass ; when they perch, which is not often, they usually select a bare twig. 
I kept a young one alive for some time, and fed him on cockroaches and grasshoppers, and he 
became exceedingly tame ; he was, however, at last killed by eating a large spider, which evidently 
poisoned him.” Mr. Mottley adds that he found it uncommon in Borneo. Mr. Everett, however, 
says (Ibis, 1877, p. 5) that in Borneo it is “ an abundant species, but confined to the sandy tracts on 
the shore-line, though a pair will be met with now and again as far as 20 miles inland, where a sandy 
bank happens to offer facilities for nidification .... The flight of these birds is strong, and com- 
bines the swift skimming of the Swallow with the airy hovering of the Ealcon. Now they will 
flutter up just as a Skylark does, and then swoop earthwards like a Hawk after its quarry, and then 
again will rise and float almost without motion, merely balancing themselves in the breeze by a slight 
quivering of the pinions. When at rest they commonly perch on the topmost twigs of the lower 
Oasuarina trees. The gizzard always contains insects — beetles, dragon-flies, and orthoptera, as well 
as wasps and bees.” 
Respecting the nidification of this Bee-eater I find nothing on record; but it doubtless, like 
its congeners, makes its nest in a hole tunnelled in a hank, and deposits white eggs. 
The specimens figured are the adult and young birds above described, the former of which 
is in my own collection, and the latter in the Tweeddale collection. 
In the preparation of the above article I have examined the following specimens : — 
E Mus. J[. E. Dresser. 
a, g ad. Qualla Kangsa, Perak, 25th February, 1877 {Lieut. Kelham). b. Cl u all a Kangsa, 20th June, 1877 
[Kelham) . 
E Mus. Tweeddale. 
a,b } ad.; c,juv. ; d, juv. Malacca {War dlaw Ramsay), e, ad. N.E. Borneo, f, ff, h, i. Lampong, S.E. Sumatra. 
k, $ ■ Sumatra, 16th September, 1878 {Bock). I, juv. Sumatra {Bock), m, juv. Lampong. 
E Mus. Ear is. 
a, 2 . Kiangsi, June 1872 (type of M. rochechouardi). b. Java ( Diard ) . c. Sumatra {Duvaucel) : type of M. cyano- 
py yhts, Less, d, juv. Sumatra. {Duvaucel) . 
E Mus. Brit. 
a, b. Malacca {Evans), c. Penang, April 1854 (Dr. Cantor), d. Sumatra, 1861 {Wallace), e. Sumatra (Gould 
coll.). f,g. Labuan {Low), h, $. Sarawak, 21st May, 1870 (Everett), i. Borneo {Mottley). 
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