TANYSIPTERA. 



377 



Mr. Frank Hislop writes me: — "Halcyon sordidiis is generally seen about the mud-flats and 

 banks of the Bloomfield River, North-eastern Queensland. They live on small fish and small 

 crabs which swarm over the mud and sand banks at low tide. I have never found the breeding- 

 place of this species." 



Nothing had been recorded of the nesting-place or eggs of the Mangrove Kingfisher, until 

 Mr. J. A. Boyd found this species breeding on Hinchinbrook Island in October 1892. He kindly 

 forwarded me a set of eggs, which I described and exhibited at the November meeting of the 

 Linnean Society of New South Wales,* in the same year. Relative to the taking of them Mr. 

 Boyd sent me the following interesting notes .— " While on a trip to Hinchinbrook Island, I was 

 camped in the beginning of October 1892, on a ridge, which, intersecting the forest of mangrove, 

 ran down to a salt-water creek about two miles from the sea. On several consecutive days I had 

 noticed a Kingfisher (Halcyon sordidus) settle on the limb of a tree that had fallen into the creek, 

 and stay there some little time picking and pluming herself. As she always came from and 

 returned in the same direction, I concluded that she was breeding, and on the 6th instant I traced 

 her to a Termites' nest in a Blood-wood Tree (Eucalyptus coryvibosa) about thirty feet from the 

 ground and leaning somewhat over the water. The tree was two feet and a half at the base, 

 and the ant's nest, not a large one, projecting only about twenty inches from the limb on which 

 it was placed, I sent up a blackfellow, and he brought down three eggs, two of which were slightly 

 incubated, and reported there was no made nest, the eggs being simply laid on the bare substance 

 of the ant-heap at the end of the burrow. I did not notice the male bird near the nest, but heard 

 him calling from a mangrove island about two hundred yards away. I saw another pair nearer 

 the coast, but though I searched on several occasions, failed to discover their breeding-place." 



The above set of eggs are pure white, and nearly round in form, the shell being very smooth 

 and nearly lustreless, and partaking less of that glossy pearly-whiteness characteristic of the 

 known eggs of all the other members of the Australian Alcedinidae. Length (A) 1-23 x 1-03 

 inches; "(B) r2 x 1-03 inches; (C) 1-22 x 1-05 inches. Mr. Boyd when subsequently in 

 Sydney, informed me that on the 26th December following, he again visited the nest of Halcyon 

 sovdidus, in company with a black boy, who in climbing the tree reported that " two fellow egg 

 sit down." These eggs were quite fresh, and were evidently laid by the same bird that had been 

 robbed in October, although the burrow in the Termites' nest had been roughly broken into with 

 a tomahawk. On this occasion one bird was flushed out of the nesting-place, and the other was 

 in a tree near at hand. The eggs are similar to those previously taken, and measure as follows:— 

 Length (A) 1-24 x 1-03 inches; (B) 1-27 x 1-03 inches. 



Judging by the dates on which Mr. Boyd took the above sets of eggs, October and the 

 three following months would appear to constitute the breeding season of this species. 



Oen-as T-A.aSr"5rSI^=TEI3.i^, Vigors. 



Tanysiptera sylvia. 



WHITE-TAILED KINGFISHER. 

 Tanysiptera syh-ia, GoyxU, Pioo. Zool. Soc, 18.50, p. 200; id., Hand-bk. Bds. Austr., Vol.1., p. 

 1.37 (1865) ; id., Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. Suppl., pi. 6 (1869); Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., 

 Vol. XVII., p. 300 {Wi-2); id., Hand-1. Bds., Vol II., p. 62 (1900). 

 Adult male— Lores, sides of the face, hind neck and upper portion of the back black, the latter 

 with a white patch in the centre; lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts and wings ultramarine- 

 blue, the outer primaries with a faint greenish tinge on their outer webs, inner webs and tips of most 

 • Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, 2nd Ser., Vol. VII., p. 395 (1892). 

 QQ2 



