ROLLER, Coracias, a genus of birds very generally referred to the crow family but by many naturalists to the bee-eater family (meropider), with which they regard the habits and colors of the species as indicating a closer alliance. The bill is moderately large, compressed toward the point, straight, the upper mandible curved downward at the point, the sides bristled at the base, the gape wide; the legs short and strong; the wings long. The colors are in general very brilliant. Mr. Swainson says -of the BLUE-BODIED ROLLER (C. cyanogaster) of western Africa, that "no effort of art can possibly do justice to those inimitably rich lines of ultramarine, beryl color, and changeable fawn, with which it is ornamented; for there are no tintshitherto discovered, mineral or vegetable, which will enable the painter to produce their successful imitation." The species are pretty numerous, all natives of the old world, and mostly of the warmer parts of it. One only is found in Europe, the CoMsioN ROLLER (C. gar
itht), a bird nearly equal in size to a jay • with head, neck, and wing-coverts greenish other shades of blue strongly marked in the wings. This bird is abundant in the n. of Africa, and in some parts of Asia; it is partially migratory, and is rare in Britain. It tosses its food, which consists of insects or parts of plants, into the air before eating it, swallowing it when it falls in a proper direction for entering the throat. The name roller is derived from its habit of tumbling in the air like a tumbler-pigeon. It is an inhabitant of woods. It is a very shy bird, and the sportsman always finds it difficult to approach. In the countries where it is abundant, as in some islands of the Mediterra nean, it is in high esteem for the table.