XIV 
HISTORY OF TEE BEE-EATERS. 
Owing to its conspicuous coloration and to its being a common bird in Southern Europe, the 
Bee-eater was well known to the early writers on natural history ; but it is scarcely necessary to 
trace its history beyond Brisson, who, in 1760, treated of all the then known species under the 
one generic title Apiaster, which, however, according to our present rules of nomenclature, has 
to give place to Merops of Linnaeus. Brisson placed his genus Apiaster near the Kingfishers, 
but separated it from them by the Todies, and ranged it between Todus and Buceros, which latter 
he terms JSydrocorax. Thirteen species are enumerated by Brisson under his genus Apiaster, of 
which, however, only seven can be included as true Bee-eaters, viz. : — Nos. 1 and 2, Merops apiaster ; 
No. 6, Merops bicolor ; No. 7, Merops superciliosus ; Nos. 8 and 9, Merops viridis ; No. 11, Melitto- 
phagus pusillus ; No. 12, Merops philippinus ; and No. 13, Melittophagus guinticolor. Nos. 3 and 
10 are doubtful, and Nos. 4 and 5 certainly not Bee-eaters. 
Linnaeus, in the 12th edition of his Syst. Nat. (1766), places the genus Merops between 
Alcedo (in which he included the Jacamars) and Upupa (in which Bromerops is included). ITe 
only includes seven species; but these must be reduced again to three, viz. Merops apiaster 
(Nos. 1 and 3), Merops viridis (No. 2), and Merops superciliosus (No. 4). Some years later D’Au- 
benton, in the ' Planches Enluminees,’ figured two species of Bee-eaters not previously known, 
viz. PI. Enl. 252 ( Merops bicolor) and PL Enl. 649 ( Merops nubicus ), but neither of these 
received scientific names till some years later. 
In 1773 Pallas, in the Supplement to his c Beise im russischen Keichs,’ first described and 
named Merops persicm; and in 1776 P. L. S. Muller, in the Supplement to his ‘ Natur system,’ 
discriminated Melittophagus pusillus, and at the same time also gave the specific name of ameri- 
canus to the species figured by D’Aubenton in the ‘ Planches Enluminees ’ (no. 252), which 
name, however, being inapplicable, has to be rejected in favour of bicolor of Boddaert, given in 
1783 (Table des Planches Enluminees d’Histoire Naturelle de M. D’Aubenton). 
J. G. Gmelin, in 1788, in the 13th ed. of Linnaeus’s Syst. Nat., enumerates the species pre- 
viously described, together with several which are not referable to the present family, and describes 
Merops nubicus, which species is founded on D’Aubenton’s plate No. 649 in the ‘ Planches 
Enluminees.’ He also describes (p. 463), under the name of Merops erythrocephalus, a Bee-eater 
which may probably be Melittophagus guinticolor ; but the description is not sufficiently clear to 
enable his name to be used. 
Latham (Ind. Orn.) and Bonnaterre (Tabl. Encycl. et Meth.) both gave a resume, in 1790, 
of the species previously described ; but neither described any new species or added anything 
worthy of note to the literature of this family. In 1793, however, Lichtenstein, in a pamphlet, 
now of great rarity (Cat. rer. nat. rariss.), first described the Swallow-tailed Bee-eater, Dicrocercus 
hirundineus ; and though his description is very meagre, yet it is quite clear enough to show that 
it is referable to this species. In Shaw and Nodder’s ‘ Naturalist’s Miscellany ’ (1790-1813) Shaw 
describes Melittophagus gularis and Merops malimbicus, and the following species are figured, viz. 
Merops nubicus (pis. 78, 613), Merops apiaster (pi. 102), Melittophagus gularis (pi. 337), and 
Merops malimbicus (pi. 701). On pi. 357 an illustration of a Bee-eater is given which is 
not recognizable, and to which he gives the name of Merops erythrocephalus ; it bears some 
resemblance to Melittophagus guinticolor, but cannot be recognized as that species. 
Latham, in the Supplement to his Ind. Orn., described Merops ornatus in 1801; and from 
