356 ALCEDININ,E. 



The eggs are almost inxariably six, rarely five, in number for a sitting, and the instance 

 previously referred to by Mr. George Savidge is the only one I have known when this number has 

 been exceeded. When fresh they are of a beautiful glossy rosy-white changing to a pure glossy 

 pearly-white when emptied of their contents. They are almost round in form, the shell bemg 

 close-grained, smooth, and are among the most lustrous of any of our Australian birds' eggs. 

 Two eggs of a set of six, taken in December, 1877, from the river bank near South Yarra, Victoria, 

 measure as follows :— Length (A) 0-87 x 073 inches; (B) o-88 x 073 inches. A set of six 

 taken by Mr. J. A. Boyd at Ripple Creek, Herbert River, North-eastern Queensland, on the 15th 

 March, 1897, measure :— Length (A) i-85 x 075 inches: (B) o-86 x 074 inches; (C) 0-87 x 

 073 inches; (0)0-87 x 073 inches ; (E) 0-84 x 07 inches ; (F) 0-85 x 074 inches. 



The usual breeding season in South-eastern Australia is during September and the four 

 following months, but nests with eggs are more often found in November and December. As 

 will be seen from Mr. J. A. Boyd's notes in North-eastern Queensland, he found fresh eggs from 

 September until March. In South-eastern Australia and Tasmania fresh eggs may be found 

 from October until the end of January. 



Alcyone pulchva, described by Gould from a specimen obtained at Port Essington, ■■ is only a 

 richer and darker coloured northern form, inhabiting the northern portions of the Australian 

 continent, and is only subspecifically distinct from the preceding species. It may chiefly be 

 distinguished by its slightly smaller size, intense ultramarine upper parts, dark coppery-rufous 

 under surface, darker ultramarine patch on each side of the breast, and the more pronounced 

 lilac wash to the lower flanks. The wing-measurement of an adult male procured by the late Mr. 

 Alexander Morton at Port Essington, in February 1879, is 2-9 inches. Specimens from this part 

 of the contment are richer and darker in colour than others procured at Derby, North-western 

 Australia, by Mr. E. J. Cairn in 1886, and at Cairns, on the opposite side of the continent, by 

 Messrs. E. J. Cairn and Robert Grant in 1887, the southern limits of its range. Specimens have 

 also been recorded from Port Darwin, the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York. 



In his " Monograph of the Alcedinidae," Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe regards it as cjuite distinct, 

 and refers to it vernacularly as the Resplendent Kingfisher, but in the " Catalogue of Birds in 

 the British Museum," \ he only recognises it as subspecifically distinct from Alcyone aztivea. 



Messrs. E. J. Cairn and Robert Grant, while collecting on behalf of the Trustees of the 

 Australian Museum, in 1887, on the coast and Bellenden Ker Range, in North-eastern Queensland, 

 obtained among many others an adult male and female of Alcyone pnlchra. One of them was 

 procured on the Barron River, about thirty miles inland from Cairns, by Mr. E. J. Cairn, who, 

 having shot the bird, had to swim to procure it. The other was captured in the nesting hole by 

 Mr. Robert Grant, who has kindly supplied the following notes: — " On the 26th December, 1887, 

 at Riverstone, about sixteen miles inland from Cairns, in company with an aboriginal called 

 " Charlie," I saw a Kingfisher fly into a hole in the bank of a creek ; after running forward and 

 placing my hat over the entrance, I enlarged the opening with my sheath knife, and putting my 

 hand in caught one of the parents. While engaged in securing it, my attention was drawn away 

 from the nest for a moment, when to my surprise another bird flew out, so both the parent birds 

 were in the hole at the same time. Afterwards, upon dissection, the bird I captured proved to 

 be the male. The nest, if worthy of the name, was placed near the end of the tunnel, which was 

 about sixteen inches in length and inclined upwards ; it was composed of a few cast fish-bones 

 and small pieces of decayed roots, but in all not sufficient to protect the eggs from the sandy soil 



* Proc. Zool. Soc, 1846, p. ig. t Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XVII., p. 169 (1892). 



