354 ALCEDININ.E. 



is as rich in colour as examples from the Herbert River, North-eastern yueensland, which is 

 about the northern limit of its range. The wing-measurement, 3-1 inches, of the Tasmanian bird, 

 however, slightly exceeds that of Australian examples. Several adult specimens in the collection 

 have the oblong spot on the side of the neck pure white, and without any rufous wash. A 

 remarkable long-billed specimen procured by Mr. Robert Grant, at Lithgow, on the Blue 

 Mountains, New South Wales, has the entire throat whitish, also the centre of the breast, but the 

 latter part has a slight rufous wash, and the bill measures two inches. 



Usually this brilliantly plumaged little bird is more frequently met with in the spring and 

 summer months, generally alone, sometimes in pairs, resorting principally to the lower branches 

 of trees overhanging rivers, creeks and waterholes, or to the thickly-wooded steep banks of a 

 stream. If one is taking a walk along one of its haunts, it generally flies close to the water and 

 bank, and alights on a branch perhaps fifteen or twenty yards ahead. This may be repeated if 

 the bird is disturbed several times, when it will either cross the river or stream flying low 

 down, or turn round again and return to the spot whence it was first flushed. I have often watched 

 these birds at Canterbury, and the head of Cook's River, while quietly seated under some 

 sheltering tree, close to the edge of the bank, just about sunset after a hot summer's day. 

 Everything then is almost perfectly still, broken only by the sucking noise made by numerous 

 small fish as they rise to the surface, with alternately gaping and closed mouth, or the slight rustling 

 movement made by Acrocephalus australis in reeds growing in the water near the opposite bank, 

 and from which a Water Crake emerges and runs timidly over the weed-grown portion of the 

 river. The shrill note oi Alcyone azurea is heard, uttered during flight, as it passes from a low branch 

 of a tree to a better vantage point, perhaps some partially submerged log, where it sits intent on the 

 capture of its finny prey. The reflection of the fast setting sun makes a golden-red glow on the 

 water, which is suddenly disturbed by the short but meteor-like flight of the Azure Kingfisher, 

 its rich ultramarine plumage now strikingly contrasted with its surrounding setting of reflected 

 golden-red water drops, the result of the bird's sudden plunge, and which now emerges with a 

 small silvery-scaled fish in its bill. This species brings back memories, too, of my early collecting 

 days, when slowly rowing in a boat under the willows growing on the banks of the Yarra and 

 overhanging the river, near Melbourne, in quest of nests of the Black and White Fantail 

 ( Saidoprocia mclakuca), or better known " Willy Wagtail," and it was from that portion of the 

 river between the Botanic Gardens and Punt Road, South Yarra, that I first became acquainted 

 with the nesting-place of the Azure Kingfisher, and subsequently shared in the spoil of a set of 

 six fresh glossy rosy-white eggs. 



Its food consists chiefly of small fish, prawns andyabbies; also water insects, principally 

 beetles. 



Under date 21st October, 1892, Mr. J. A. Boyd wrote me from Ripple Creek, Herbert River, 

 North-eastern Queensland : — " I found three burrows of Alcyone azurea ; they were made in a stiff 

 sandy clay in the side of a bank of a salt-water creek. How the bird tunnels in such hard 

 material is a mystery. The holes were about eighteen inches in length ; one had not been laid 

 in, another contained three fresh eggs, and the third two eggs, which were addled and the 

 contents partly dry." Writing on diflferent dates subsequently, the following are Mr. Boyd's 

 records: — "On the 4th September, 1894, an aboriginal brought me a set of five fresh eggs. I 

 got five eggs, quite fresh, on the 27th February, 1897, and a set of six fresh eggs on the 15th 

 March, 1897." 



Mr. George Savidge sends me the following notes from Copmanhurst, on the Upper Clarence 

 River, New South Wales: — "Alcyone azurea is plentifully dispersed along our rivers and water- 

 courses. It usually breeds in a hole in a bank overhanging water, but I have also found their 

 nests several hundred yards away from any stream. The chamber or tunnel is about three feet 

 long, and the eggs are placed upon an accumulation of very fine fish bones. They usually lay 



