according to the Prince of Musignano; Gemeine Eisvogel | accounts which have been given of the nest of this bird in(Bechstein) and Grosser, Kleiner und Fremder Eisvogel duced us to take some pains to discover the fact. The (Brehm) of the Germans; Glas y dorlan of the antient British, and Common Kingfisher of the modern British. Whether this species is one of the birds named aλrvúv (Halcyon) or ákvάv (Alcyon)—for some of the learned doubt whether the word should be aspirated or not-of Aristotle and the Greeks, is by no means satisfactorily made out, though the better opinion seems to be that it is the 'Akvóv äpwvos of the Greek zoologist. Belon and Pennant think that it is; Klein and M. De Bomare, on the contrary (and Camus seems to agree with them), consider it as doubtful which of our birds was meant by the Halcyon of the antients, whose seven placid days while brooding over its poetical floating nest have become proverbial.

Description.-Bill blackish-brown, reddish at the base. Behind each eye is a patch of light orange-brown, succeeded by a white one. From each corner of the under mandible proceeds a streak of verditer-blue, tinged with verdigris-green. Crown of the head deep olive-green, the feathers tipped with verdigris-green. From the nape of the neck to the tail is a strip of verditer-blue feathers, tinged in some shades with verdigris-green. Chin and throat yellowish-white. Breast, belly, and vent orange-brown, palest towards the under tail-coverts. Tail greenish-blue; the shafts of the feathers black. Legs pale tile-red. (Selby.) The irides are hazel. The bill of the female is not so long as in the other sex. The colours also are deeper and more of a green shade.

result of our researches are (is), that the hole chosen to breed in is always ascending, and generally two or three feet in the bank; at the end is scooped a hollow, at the bottom of which is a quantity of small fish-bones, nearly half an inch thick, mixed in with the earth. This is undoubtedly the castings of the parent birds, and not the young, for we have found it even before they have eggs, and have every reason to believe that both male and female go to that spot, for no other purpose than to eject this matter, for some time before the female begins to lay, and that they dry it by the heat of their bodies, as they are frequently known to continue in the hole for hours, long before they have eggs. On this disgorged matter the female lays to the number of seven eggs, which are perfectly white and transparent, of a short oval form, weighing about one dram. The hole in which they breed is by no means fouled by the castings; but before the young are able to fly it becomes extremely fetid by the fæces of the brood, which is (are) of a watery nature, and cannot be carried away by the parent birds, as is common with most of the smaller species. In defect of which, instinct has taught them to have the entrance of their habitation ascending, by which means the filthy matter runs off, and may frequently be seen on the outside. We never could observe the old birds with anything in their bills when they went to feed their young; from which it may be concluded they eject from their stomach for that purpose." Mr. Selby, after noticing the ejection of bones and other Reproduction, Habits, Food-Setting aside the fable of indigestible parts, in pellets, by the mouth of these birds, the floating cradle in which during the Halcyon days the goes on to state that they breed in the banks of the streams bird was said to rear its young, we shall find that ornitho- they haunt, either digging a hole themselves, or taking logists have differed not a little as to the actual nest of this possession of that of a water-rat, which they afterwards brilliant bird. Pennant says that it makes its nest in holes enlarge to suit their convenience. He then proceeds as in the sides of cliffs, which it scoops to the depth of three follows:- The bearing of the hole is always diagonally feet, and in holes in the banks of rivers, chiefly those which upwards, and it pierces two or three feet into the bank. before belonged to the water-rat; and he states the number The nest is composed of the above-mentioned pellets of fishof the eggs to be from five to nine, of a most beautiful bones, ejected into a small cavity at the farther end of this transparent white. The nest, he adds, is very fetid. Pen-retreat, and upon which the eggs arè laid, to the number of nant then refers to Aristotle's description of the nest of the six or seven, of a transparent pinkish white.' He then áλкvúv äpwvoc, or Mute Halcyon, in which the latter states quotes the remarks of Montagu on the sloping direction of that it resembled those spherical concretions that are the hole, and the use of that direction in carrying away formed by the sea-water (áλooáɣvn), that it was hollow offensive matter. (Illustrations of British Ornithology, within, that the entrance was very narrow, so that if it vol. i.) should upset, the sea would not enter; that it resisted any violence from irou, but yielded to a blow of the hand, and when thus broken was soon reduced to powder, and that it was composed of the bones of the Seλóvn (Belone)—a sea-fish so named,-for the bird lives on fish. Aristotle then states the number of eggs at five or thereabouts (Hist. Anim., ix. 14). Pennant, who, as we have observed, considers the Mute Halcyon of Aristotle to be our common kingfisher, observes that much of the description above quoted seems to be founded on truth. The form of the nest, he remarks, agrees almost exactly with the curious account of it by Count Zinnani. The materials, which Aristotle says it (the nest) was composed of, are not entirely of his own invention. Whoever has seen the nest of the kingfisher will observe it strewed with the bones and scales of fish, the fragments of the food of the owner and its young; and those who deny that it is a bird which frequents the sea must not confine their ideas to our northern shores, but reflect, that birds inhabiting a sheltered place in the more rigorous latitudes may endure exposed ones in a milder climate. Aristotle made his observations in the East, and allows that the Halcyon sometimes ascended rivers, possibly to breed, for we learn from Zinnani, that in his soft climate, Italy, it breeds in May, in banks of streams that are near the sea; and having brought up the first hatch, returns to the same place to lay a second time.' Now, it will be observed that Pennant, in his own description of the nest, speaks of nothing but the hole and the fetid remains; and though Zinnani gives a very good description of the excavated hole, he speaks with caution of the collection of fish-remains therein; for though, he says, of the 'scaglie di pesci' with which the nest was covered, restrano vagamente intrecciate,' he adds, ma forse non sono cosi disposte ad arte, bensì per accidente,' showing that he thought their disposition about the nest was probably more the result of accident than design.

Montagu, in his Ornithological Dictionary, says that the bird generally takes possession of a rat's hole to deposit its eggs; he then proceeds as follows The many curious

Mr. Rennie, in his edition of Montagu's Dictionary, observes, that from the high authority of Montagu, the de scription above given has been copied by every recent writer, with the exception of Temminck, who says nothing on the subject, and Wilson, who says (Am. Orn., iii. 60), of his belted kingfisher (Alcedo Alcyon), that its nest is neither constructed of glue nor fish-bones.' Mr. Rennie then proceeds thus:- We are certain of the fact that this will apply equally to our own kingfisher. In the bank of a stream at Lee in Kent, we have been acquainted with one of these nests in the same hole for several successive summers, but so far from the exuviæ of fish-bones ejected, as 19 done by all birds of prey, being dried on purpose to form the nest, they are scattered about the floor of the hole in all directions, from its entrance to its termination, without the least order or working up with the earth, and all moist and fetid. That the eggs may by accident be laid upon portions of these fish-bones is highly probable, as the floor is so thickly strewed with them that no vacant spot might be found, but they assuredly are not by design built up into a nest. The hole is from two to four feet long, sloping upwards, narrow at the entrance, but widening in the interior, in order perhaps to give the birds room to turn, and for the same apparent reason the eggs are not placed at the extre mity. I am not a little sceptical as to its sometimes selecting the old hole of a water-rat, which is the deadly enemy to its eggs and young; but it seems to indicate a dislike to the labour of digging. It frequents the same hole for a series of years, and will not abandon it, though the nest be repeatedly plundered of the eggs or young. The accumulation of cast-bones in one of these old holes has perhaps given origin to the notion of the nest being formed of then.'

Mr. Gould, in his Birds of Europe, states that the eggs are deposited in a hole, such as those above alluded to, by the female, without making any nest.

But Temminck ('Manuel,' 1820) says that the bird nestles in holes in the earth, most frequently in those abandoned by the water-rats, along the art banks of rivers, often under the roots of trees, in the hollows of trees, and some white. times in the holes of rocks, and that it lays from six to eight eggs, of a lustrous

feathers longest. (Vigors.) Mr. Swainson gives India as | curved; the upper margins folding over the lower. Nostrils the Locality. membranaceous; the aperture round, protected by feathers. Wings as in Galbula, but longer; the third and fifth quills equal. (Sw.) Example, Lamprotila platyrhyncha.

Example, Tanysiptera Dea; Alcedo Dea, Linn., Ispida Ternatana, Briss.

Description.-Above intense black-azure, white beneath; head and wing-coverts cærulean; tail-feathers white margined with cærulean, the two middle ones cærulean, with their apices club-shaped and white. (Vigors.)

Tanysiptera Dea.

Lamprotila platyrhyncha.
Galbula.

Generic Character.-Plumage metallic. Bill very long. perfectly straight, greatly compressed; the culmen share: the tip not bent. Wings short. Tail lengthened, grada

Alcyone.-Bill as in Alcedo; but the feet with only three ated. Toes in pairs, or with the Hallux wanting. Nostro toes. Australia. Swainson.) Example, Alcyone Australis.

Description.-Body above, sides of the head and neck, shining mazarine blue; beneath rufous; chin and throat whitish; wings blackish; inner fore-toe wanting. (Swainson, Zool. Ill., 1st series, where it is figured and described as Alcedo azurea.)

• Locality, New Holland.

Habits.-Lewin, who has figured this Kingfisher in his Birds of New Holland,' states that it inhabits heads of rivers, visiting dead trees, from the branches of which it darts on its prey in the water beneath, and is sometimes completely immersed by the velocity of its descent.

with a few strong bristles. (Sw.)

Habits.-Mr. Swainson remarks (Classification of Birds vol. ii.) that the habits of the Jacamars and those of the Puff-birds and Hermit-Birds are similar, although the flight of the latter is weaker. 'The Jacamars,' he say generally sit on low naked branches in the forest paths, from whence they dart upon butterflies, spearing them with

6

Alcyone Australis.
Lamprotila.

Generic Character.-Plumage metallic green and gold. Bill very broad, dilated; the commissure and culmen

Galbula paradisea,