Feeding Habits of Nestling Bee-eaters

Abstract

THE paragraph in NATURE of March 28, 1918, p. 70, upon a paper in which Mr. W. Rowan describes the defæcation of the nestlings of the British kingfisher, leads me to mention the habits of a bird also nesting in tunnels. I refer to the bee-eater (Merops). Mr. J. E. Ward, recently a fellow-passenger from New Guinea, told me that the young of a Papuan species defæcate outside the nest but within the tunnel. The fæces attract flies, which breed in the mass, and the resulting larvæ form the food of the very young nestlings. As the flies later emerge, the young birds have grown sufficiently to be able to catch the insects on the wing.