352 Mr. F. Lewis on the Land-birds of 



limit of the wet zone^ where they rise abruptly from the 

 hot plains. I found a specimen in the private collection of 

 a friend, who stated that he had shot it at the top of 

 Longford Estate, which is near the summit o£ the range just 

 mentioned. 



53. Alcedo bengalensis (Legge, B. of C. p. 292). 



Abundant throughout the province, and found breeding 

 up to 3000 feet altitude. 



The effect of rainfall, or perhaps I should say humidity, 

 distinctly modifies the colouring in some, if not in all birds, 

 and I do not know a better example of this than in the 

 present species. I have obtained specimens of it from the 

 driest parts of the province, and again from the wettest, and 

 the difference in general colour was one of several degrees of 

 shade. Thus, taking the examples of Alcedo bengalensis 

 obtained at Bedigantotta on the Wallawey river, say 12 miles 

 in a direct line from Hambantotta, with a mean rainfall of 

 42 inches, and comparing them with examples obtained in the 

 valley of the Kuru river, that drains an area over which the 

 rainfall exceeds 300 inches, it is almost as comparing brown 

 with black. The dry-zone forms are always paler, with a 

 greenish gloss over the blue colouring, while the wet-zone 

 birds are of a deep blue on all the blue patches. I think this 

 fact may be explained in this way : that as vegetation is more 

 rank in wet steamy localities than in the plains, where for 

 months hardly a drop of rain falls to revive the drooping 

 undergrowth, it must follow that the more dense the vege- 

 tation, the deeper the shadows cast by trees &c. on the banks 

 of streams, and by adaptation, the coloration of the forms 

 inhabiting such spots will be varied accordingly. I noticed 

 in Borneo, while working on the Segalind river, that in some 

 of the most gloomy growths of vegetation there were the 

 darkest forms of this Kingfisher, while specimens taken from 

 the paddi-fields in the North-western Province of Ceylon 

 might at first glance be easily taken for a different species 

 wlien the two were set side by side, if colour only were 

 taken as a standard on which to base specific differences. 



