Malayan Ornithology. 381 



As regards its habits, it has much iu common with the 

 White-breasted species, frequenting the same localities, and, 

 like it, feeding on frogs, small fishes, and crabs ; but it can at 

 once, even at a distance, be distinguished from that bird by 

 the rich purple colour of its plumage ; also it is rather larger. 

 One evening in November, while Snipe-shooting in the swampy 

 paddy-fields of Singapore, I saw one of these Purple King- 

 fishers perched on a post which stood eight or nine feet out 

 of a large pool formed by the damming-up of a stream which 

 flowed through the swamp ; suddenly it darted down with a 

 splash into the water, then returned to its former position 

 with its prey, a small frog, which, holding it in its beak by 

 one leg, it despatched by shaking it violently from side to 

 side. At this stage of the proceeding I shot the bird^ as I 

 wanted to be sure as to its species and food. 



Halcyon chloris (Bodd.). The White-collared King- 

 fisher. 



Particularly plentiful on Pulo Battam, Pulo Nongsa, and 

 all the small islands near Singapore, also common along the 

 mangrove-girt coasts of the mainland ; in fact, it appears to 

 confine itself to the salt or brackish water, and is never met 

 with far from the sea. 



Besides restricting itself so entirely to the sea-coasts, it has 

 other characteristics which seem to separate it from the paddy- 

 field and fresh-water Halcyons : unlike most of them^ its 

 beak is black, rather short, and the gonys distinctly curves 

 upwards throughout its entire length. 



Carcineutes pulchellus (Horsf.). 



By no means rare ; but of its habits I know nothing. 



Alcedo mininting, Horsf. 



Not very scarce; I shot it in Perak, and often saw it about 

 the lake in the Botanical Gardens, Singapore. 



Ceyx rueidorsa, Strickl. The Three-toed Ruddy King- 

 fisher. 



By no means common, though I obtained it at both Malacca 

 and Singapore ; at the latter place, during the wet and stormy 



