ROLLER. 
253 
IJVSESSOXES. 
FISSIROSTRES. 
MEHOPIBjE. 
ROLLER. 
CORACIAS GARRULA. 
PLATE LXIV. FIG. HI. 
The Roller is one of those few occasional visitants 
of the British Islands, the brilliancy of whose plumage 
seems almost to tell us that it has but little right to 
a place in our catalogue. 
The few instances of its occurence with us have been 
chiefly in the north of Britain. It is met with in the 
forests of Germany, and is not unfrequent in other parts 
of Europe. 
It is said to breed in the holes of decayed trees; and 
in those districts where trees are scarce, to make its nest, 
like the bee-eater and the kingfisher, in a bank of earth, 
which appears to be its more natural position, if we may 
judge from the appearance of the egg. It lays from four 
to seven eggs, which bear a very close resemblance to 
those of the bee-eater and the kingfisher,—figured in the 
same plate,—in the roundness of their contour and the 
glossy varnished appearance of the shell. 
