THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 30I 



the syllables, "more pork," to which it owes its most familiar 

 name, though it is also known as the cuckoo. 



Its food consists chiefly of cicadas, and beetles, which it 

 captures when asleep among the bushes, and not on 

 the wing, like its European congener, from which it also 

 differs by its habit of sitting across the branch and not 

 along it, as the latter does. 



The eggs are white, two in number, and are laid in a. 

 hollow in a decayed branch or trunk, without any attempt 

 being made at nest construction. It is about the same size 

 as the English bird, to which it bears a general resemblance. 



Family — Podargidm. 



Genus — Podarsrus. P. aivicri. Cuvier's Podargus. 



THE KINGFISHERS. 



Almost everyone has heard of the strange bird known in 

 the Australian Colonies by the name of Laughing Jackass„ 

 and more scientifically, Dacelo. It belongs to the King- 

 fishers, and is usuall}- classed as follows : — 



Fam i 1 y — A kedhice. 



Genus — Dacelo. D. gigantica. Laughing Kingfisher. 

 D. cervina. Buft' Laughing King- 



fisher. 



The latter is the representative of the family in the 

 northern and the former in the southern parts of Australia, 

 where few travellers through the bush have failed to be 

 startled when first at or before day-break they listened to 

 its powerful voice and weird cachinnation, which some 

 writers have likened to the laugh of an idiot, and others to 

 the braying of a donkey ; the fact being that it is some- 



