65 
Palermo, in Sicily, wliicli he saw ; but both Doderlein and Benoit doubt this occurrence. Scbembri 
states that one was killed in Malta in September 1840 ; but Mr. C. A. "Wright remarks that all 
trace of this specimen has been lost. This latter gentleman, however, possesses a specimen which 
he says was “ killed at the end of May 1871, at the Inquisitor’s Palace, Malta, by P. Camilleri, 
barber of the Central Hospital, out of a flock ; but whether of the same or of the common kind 
( 'll apiaster) he could not say. He was first attracted by its note, which was different from any 
he had heard before. 
It is included amongst the birds of Greece by both Lindermayer and Yon der Muhle, who 
say that they have on several occasions found it exposed for sale in the Athens market amongst 
common Bee-eaters ; and Erhard records it from the Cyclades as a “ summer visitant,” under 
which heading he includes the birds which breed in those islands. Dr. Kriiper also states that a 
small flock of these Bee-eaters was seen in Greece on the 19th of April, 1874, out of which four 
specimens were obtained. 
In Southern Russia it is of very rare occurrence. Professor von Nordmann observed it twice 
near Odessa, and according to Hencke (Ibis, 1883, p. 210) six examples were once obtained at 
the mouth of the Yolga late in May. Canon Tristram met with this Bee-eater near Berejik, in 
Armenia, and writes (Ibis, 1882, p. 414), “ I was delighted to find here, for the first time in any 
numbers, a colony of the Persian Bee-eater (Merops persicus ), not so numerous as M. apiaster, 
but still plentiful. The habits of the two species are markedly different when seen together. 
M. persicus is by no means shy, and perches much more frequently than the other, settling on 
low trees, and frequently on the top of a thistle-tuft.” Canon Tristram shot one in the Jordan 
Yalley in 1858, and Mr. Cochrane, who accompanied him on his second journey, saw a flock near 
Hebron. I may also here state that it has been obtained at Beyrout, in Syria. 
In North-east Africa the present species is very common. Captain Shelley says that it is 
“ the most abundant of the Bee-eaters in April. It arrives in the country about a fortnight 
earlier in the spring than Merops apiaster.” Mr. E. C. Taylor saw the first at Benisouef on the 
26th of March, after which time they became plentiful. They were, he adds, very tame and 
much given to perching on telegraph-wires . Yon Heuglin writes (1. c.) : — “In the latter days 
of March, and usually before M. apiaster arrives, small flocks of this species appear on passage 
in Lower Egypt, and frequent fields, gardens, and fig-plantations, on the edge of the desert, 
the dunes, or in meadows, and usually leave after a sojourn of a few days, to return again in 
hundreds in June and July, when they often collect together, several hundred in a flock, and 
are seen chiefly in the olive-gardens, and on tamarisks and acacias along the canals. In the 
morning they remain where they have roosted, utter their call-note in a low tone, and about nine 
o’clock collect in flocks, and spread over the fields and in the villages, uttering loud cries. Their 
flight is Swallow-like, but irregular, and one or two leave the flock and circle round catching insects, 
which are devoured either on the wing or when seated on a branch at the top of a tree. During 
the heat in the middle of the day they rest for a time ; and I never saw a Bee-eater go to drink. 
In the evening they collect together and, uttering their note noisily, go to roost. In the summer 
they are very fat, and numbers are killed and eaten by the Italian and Greek gunners. Late in 
August one meets flocks of this Bee-eater on passage in Nubia, East Sudan, and Abyssinia ; but 
they do not winter here, but migrate further in a southerly or south-westerly direction. On the 
17th of October, 1857, I found the Avicennia- thickets on some of the islands on the Somali 
coast covered with Bee-eaters and Hollers, which evidently came there after the flocks of locusts. 
Brehm surmised correctly that this species breeds in May, in Central and Lower Egypt ; for I 
K 
