692 H O O P O E .
Place.
T h e bill is an inch and eight lines long, and Blackilh ; but the
fides are yellowilh : the head, throat, neck, back, and rump, are
•dull grey, gloffed with fea-green and purplilh red in different
lights : belly, fides, thighs, and under tail coverts, light yellow :
above each eye is a fpot of the fame : the greater quills are light
blue ; but the leffer the fame colour as the back : the tail is
blackilh grey, but in fome lights has a glofs of deep green and
purple ; four of the middle ones are much longer than the
others.
It is faid to inhabirMexico, and to frequent high mountainous
places, where it feeds on caterpillars, flies, beetles, and other infelts.
Bujfon kems to fufpeét the fact of this being a native of South
America.
—f- CAPE
- ÆR.
tJpupa Promerops, Lin. Syß. i. p. 184. N® 2.
Merops cafer, Lin. Syß. i. p. 183. N° 7.
Le Promerops, Brif. orn. ii. p. 461. N° 1. t. 43. f. 2.
'Le Promerops brun à ventre tacheté, Buß. oif. vi. p. 469.
Le Guêpier gris d’Ethiopie, Buß. oiß. vi. p. 492.
Promerops du Cap de Bonne Efperance, PI. enl. 637.
Merops fufcus, Ani regione fiavâ, Sec, N. C. Ac. Sc. Petr, xi, p. 429* t. 14.
f. 1.
Lev. Muß.
Description. *T"',HE length of this fpecies is feventeen inches: the body
-*■ about the fize of a Lark. The bill is an inch and five lines
long, and black : the upper parts of the head, neck, back, wing
coverts, and fcapulars, are brown : rump and upper tail coverts
olive green ; but under the tail of a fine yellow : the throat is
white, with a narrow longitudinal brown band on each fide : the
fore
H O O P O E . 693
fore part of the neck and breaft incline to rufous: the belly
white: thighs brown: the feathers on the Tides the fame, but
edged with white : quills brown : the tail is compofed of twelve
feathers of the fame colour j the fix middle ones are twelve
inches and a quarter in length, the others much fhorter ; the
outer one being two, the next three, and the third four inches
only in length : the legs and claws are black.
This is the defcription of Brijfon; but appears to be the female,
or a young bird, fince the under parts are very fparingly fpotted,
and that only on the fides| whereas, in many fpecimens, they are
manifeft, both on the breaft and belly, which Buffon thinks to be
the male; the tail feathers of which, he fays, are one inch longer
than the female, and has a narrow ftripe of grey acrofs the wings? I
think it not amifs to add, that the feathers on the forehead and
crown are narrow, pointed, and mixed with greyifh: and the
tongue reaches quite to the end of the bill.
Thefe birds are very common at the Cafe of Good Hope, from Pt4.ce.
which they are frequently brought, and may be found in many
collections.
• -With the above I have ventured to place the Merops cafer o f
Linrusus, as fynonymous. This laft he has given a very imperfefit
defcription of, and that merely from a drawing: the whole which
he fays of it is, that it is of a grey colour, has a yellow vent, and a
very long tail, and inhabits JEthiopia.
That likewife mentioned by M. Koelreuter, in the Ptterjburgb
T.ranfaltions, I am not quite clear in : he calls it Merops cafer,
the one above alluded to 5 but his defcription leads one to
think it the Promerops above defcribed.
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