P R E F A C E.
IT is now some years since I began to take a special interest in the Bee-eaters and Hollers (indeed
long before I had completed my work on the ' Birds of Europe'), and I then commenced to make
a collection of the birds belonging to these families, though not with the object of writing a Monograph
of them, as I understood that my friend Mr. D. G. Elliot purposed doing so. However, as
Mr. Elliot has not carried out what I understood to be his intention, and as I found that it would
take years before I could gather sufficient material to commence a work on the birds of the Eastern
Palmaretic Region, as a sequel to my 'Birds of Europe,' I resolved to undertake the present
Monograph so as to employ my spare time in the meanwhile; and I trust that the result of my
labours may be such as to merit the approbation of my fellow-ornithologists, and that the present
work may prove the means of obtaining more information respecting several species of Bee-eaters
about which, as will he seen by the following pages, but very little is known. I have to acknowledge
with deep appreciation the willing assistance rendered to me by many fellow-naturalists during
the progress of the present work ; and I am especially indebted to Captain G. E. Shelley for the
loan of his entire collection of Jl'eropidte, as also to Captain li. G. Wardlaw Ramsay for the loan
of the Bee-eaters belonging to the Twecddalc collection. When I first determined to write this
Monograph the late Mr. W. A. Forbes undertook to furnish the notes on the anatomy and
osteology of the Bee-eaters and Rollers; but owing to his premature death, before he had done
more than just commence the task, I was deprived of the valuable assistance he would thus
have given me. However, his successor in the post of Prosector to the Zoological Society,
Mr. Frank E. Beddard, has most kindly come forward and volunteered to undertake this portion
of the work, and to him I am indebted for the valuable notes on this subject that are embodied
in the Introduction. I may add that I have now in preparation a Monograph of the Rollers,
which I trust ere long to complete (and, indeed, all the Plates have already been drawn on stone,
printed off, and coloured), which will form a companion volume to the present Monograph.
II. E. DRESSER.
Topclyffe Grange, Farnljorough, Kent.
28 December, 1865.