PICARIAN BIRDS. 87 
(B. auritus) (1118) represents a group of smaller but closely-allied 
birds with very handsomely coloured plumage; the most diminutive 
members of the family are the Owlet-Nightjars such as 4. nove- 
hollandie (1114), which live in holes in trees during the day and 
capture their prey on the wing like the true Nightjars, though their 
flight is said to be less tortuous. 
Family III. Ancepinripm. KuinerisHers. (Plate XVII.) 
This large family, comprising about 160 species, is universally but 
very unequally distributed over the globe. The majority come from 
the Malay Archipelago, from Celebes to New Guinea, and from this 
centre they radiate in every direction. In all the eggs are round, white 
and glossy, and deposited in a hole in a tree or bank. ‘The species 
are divided into two subfamilies, the Water-Kingfishers, Alcedinine, 
and the Wood-Kingfishers, Dacelonine. The former, characterised 
by their long, slender, compressed bill with a distinct keel or ridge 
along the upper mandible, are mainly fish-eating species; while the 
latter, with a stouter, wider bill, prey on insects, crustacea, reptiles, 
and occasionally on birds and small mammals. 
To the subfamily Alcedinine belong the Stork-billed Kingfishers, 
such as the Burmese species (Pelargopis burmanica) (1115), which 
occasionally varies its fish diet with small reptiles and young birds, 
and the members of the genus Cery/e, distributed over the Old and 
New Worlds, and remarkable among birds of this group on account of 
the difference in the markings of the sexes. One of the largest is the 
Ringed Kingfisher (C. torquata) (1116), belonging to the grey-backed 
section of the genus, while the green-backed South American species 
are represented by C. superciliosa (1118), one of the smallest of all the 
Kingfishers. The best known member of this section is the Common 
Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) (1120) [Pl. XVIL.|, the brightest. of our 
indigenous birds and a familiar ornament of our rivers and lakes. 
Other smaller allied forms are the Malachite-crested Kingfisher (Cory- 
thornis cristata) (1121), and the Little Blue Kingfisher (Alcyone pusilla) 
(11238), which has only three toes. 
The first of the Dacelonine to be mentioned are the diminutive 
members of the genus Ceyw (1124), which, like Alcyone, have only 
three toes, but frequent forests rather than streams ; the equally small 
and beautiful forms of /spidina (1125, 1126) found in Africa; the 
eurious Saw-billed species (Syma flavirostris) (1121) from Australia ; 
and the Black-cheeked Carcineutes melanops (1128). The large genus 
Halcyon, containing more than fifty species, is represented by a number 
of very beautiful forms, of which we may specially mention the 
[Case 57.] 
