83 
for we found one flat piece of sandy ground perforated witli numberless boles, into wliicb tlie 
birds were diving and scrambling like so many rats.” 
In Asia the Common Bee-eater does not range very far to the eastward. It is found in 
Arabia; and Mr. Wyatt says (Ibis, 1870, p. 12) that he saw one at El Noweyba, by the Gulf of 
Akabah, on the 6th April, and on the 9th of that month he found it in abundance near there. 
Messrs. Dickson and Boss record it (P. Z. S. 1839, p. 119) from Erzeroom, where it arrives about 
the middle of May, leaving again late in September. Severtzoff states that it breeds commonly 
in Turkestan ; and Mr. Blanford writes (E. Pers. ii. p. 122) that it is “ a summer migrant to Persia, 
and during the warm months it abounds throughout the islands. I met with it first in 
Baluchistan on the 9th of April ; but there, as in Sindh, it is, I suspect, only a bird of passage, 
and its breeding-quarters are further north ; but large numbers undoubtedly remain during the 
summer and breed in the Persian highlands. The same remarks apply to Merops persicus and 
Coracias garrulus, none of these species being found in India in the winter, although they traverse 
Baluchistan, Sindh, and occasionally North-western India in the spring and autumn; so that it is 
probable that all of them pass the colder months of the year in Arabia or Africa, and their line 
of migration crosses at right angles that of such species as Euspiza melanocephala and Coturnix 
communis , which resort to India in the winter and breed in the Persian highlands.” 
Capt. Wardlaw Bamsay writes (Ibis, 1880, p. 49 ) : — “ I first observed the European Bee-eater 
on the 5th June, after which it became quite common in the Hariab valley. On the 22nd of the 
same month I found it very common between Kurrum fort and the Peiwar Kotul, where neither 
trees nor shrubs are to be seen for miles. The birds were sitting on the ground and darting up 
at insects occasionally Ep to the 10th July, when I left the Kurrum valley, these birds 
were not breeding ; nor, indeed, did I see any place at all suitable for the purpose. 
“ Surgeon-Major Aitchison, of the Indian Medical Department, the botanist to the Kurrum 
Expedition, informed me that in a village near the base of the Safed-Koh the villagers said that 
sometimes in the month of June, when the Bee-eaters arrive, they come down in great numbers 
to rob the bees from the hives, and that the people had to keep continually on the watch to drive 
them off. The natives also say that the Bee-eaters do not remain long ; so that it is possible that 
they may go elsewhere to breed.” 
According to Dr. Jerdon it was observed by Dr. Leith Adams in great numbers in the valley 
of Cashmere, extending into the plains of the Punjab, and is very abundant at Peshawar. He 
further remarks (Ibis, 1872, p. 3) that he did not find it so generally spread in Cashmere as he 
expected, but he saw one immense flock on the Wullur lake in the month of August, evidently 
about to migrate. According to Pallas it is found in Asiatic Bussia only as far east as the Irtish river. 
The Bee-eater is certainly one of the most brilliantly coloured and conspicuous of our 
European birds ; and in the rich sunshine of the south there are few more beautiful sights than 
a flock of these birds hawking after insects. I first saw it alive in Southern Spain, but was too 
early to find it breeding, and have never been able to take\ its eggs. Those I saw had just 
arrived, and were hawking about in pursuit of insects, sometimes resting on the telegraph-wires 
which passed close to where they were. In their mode of flight they reminded me a good deal 
of the Swallow, and were catching insects on the wing like that bird. They feed on insects of 
various kinds, such as bees, wasps, grasshoppers, locusts, and beetles of various kinds, which are 
chiefly captured on the wing, but are also picked off trees, bushes, or plants. To the beekeeper 
it is an intolerable nuisance ; for one or two of these birds will sometimes watch the entrance to 
a hive, and almost decimate the bees as they pass and repass. 
