AVES. 87 



making a sudden dive, and instantly resuming their places in the air, 

 their silky plumage gleaming in the sunlight. 



The Pied Kingfisher is only an occasional straggler to Europe. It is 

 extremely common in Egypt, and throughout all Africa, south of the 

 Sahara ; is rare in Persia, and frequent throughout India, Burmah, and 

 China. 



172. Halcyon smyrnensis. (Linn. Syst. Nat. i., p. 186.) Smyrna 

 Kino-fisher. 



o 



The Smyrna Kingfisher was first noticed by Albin in i 760 as from 

 that district, and so named by Linnaeus. But it was never again detected 

 in Western Asia till Captain Graves, R.N., re-discovered it near Smyrna, 

 as noticed by Mr. Strickland in an interesting paper. (Ann. Nat. Hist., 

 vol. ix., p. 441.) 



We were the first to find it in Palestine, where it is strictly confined 

 to the Jordan valley, though Russell in the last century mentions it near 

 Aleppo. It is therefore not exclusively tropical in its habitat. In its 

 habits it is very different from the lively Pied Kingfisher. It is shy and 

 solitary, never hovers, and sits for hours on its perch over a swamp, its 

 bright plumage well concealed by the foliage, and when alarmed, slinks away 

 under the oleanders. Its food is not fish, but reptiles, frogs and locusts. 

 Like all the other tropical birds of the Jordan valley, it remains through- 

 out the year, from the Dead Sea to the Upper Jordan. It breeds in 

 April in holes on the banks of streamlets on the plain of Gennesaret. 



The Smyrna Kingfisher is strictly Asiatic, and as we have seen, most 

 rare and local in Western Asia. Eastward it is more plentiful. I have 

 seen it in Mesopotamia, and it inhabits Southern Persia, India, Ceylon, 

 and China. It is one of the most interesting instances of the extension o 

 the Indian Fauna to the Jordan valley. 



