WESTERN BELTED KINGFISHER 129 



Further insight into the migratory flights of individual kingfishers 

 is provided by banding records. One banded as a nestling at Nobles- 

 ville, Ind., on June 21, 1924, was killed in the Naches Kiver Valley, 

 Tex., on November 19, 1924, while another, banded on June 30, 1937, 

 at Waukesha, Wis., was retaken at Society Hill, S. C, on November 

 22, 1937. 



Casual records. — At least a part of the reported occurrences of the 

 belted kingfisher in the Old World are unsatisfactory. Two cases, 

 wherein specimens were alleged to have been taken in Meath and 

 Wicklow, Ireland, in the autumn of 1845 are now believed to be based 

 upon fraud. A specimen is supposed to have been taken on the island 

 of Flores in the Azores, but neither its disposition nor the details of 

 collection are known. A male bird was taken, however, in Holland 

 on December 17, 1899, and another was collected on Westmann Island, 

 off the south coast of Iceland, in September 1901. 



Egg dates. — California : 16 records, April 7 to June 24 ; 8 records, 

 April 21 to May 17, indicating the height of the season. 



Illinois : 5 records. May 10 to June 8. 



Massachusetts : 8 records, May 11 to June 6. 



New York: 27 records, April 10 to July 15; 14 records, May 10 

 to 29. 



Ontario : 7 records, May 24 to June 28. 



MEGACERYLE ALCYON CAURINA (Grinnell) 

 WESTERN BELTED KINGFISHER 



Plate 15 



HABITS 



It has long been known that the kingfishers of the Pacific coast are 

 appreciably larger than eastern birds, but Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1910) 

 was the first to give the western race a name. He characterizes it as 

 "similar to the Ceryle alcyon of eastern and southern North America, 

 but size throughout greater, especially measurements of flight- 

 feathers," and goes on to say that "the secondary wing quills are 

 proportionally longer in the northwestern birds. This means that in 

 addition to its greater expanse of wing and generally larger size, the 

 wing of caurina is 'broader. In the closed wing this difference pre- 

 sents itself conspicuously in the interval between the end of the long- 

 est secondary and the tip of the longest primary. In the northwest- 

 ern birds this interval averages only 27.3 mm., while in the eastern 

 birds it averages 33.7 mm. This is in spite of the larger size of the 

 former. The ratio to total wing length in the two cases is 17 and 22 

 per cent., respectively." 



