HALCTOX. 15 



* Its cry is ti shrill piping note uttered, whilst ilyiug from one 

 perch to the other, at lougish intervals. I have not noticed it 

 make any noise whilst perching. Its flight is very swift, and 

 the changes of the appearance in its plumage are exceedingly 

 beautiful. 



" My notes give the 25th of May as the earliest date on which 

 I have taken it- eggs. Most were taken in July, and some well on 

 into August, the 12th of that month, in 1887, being the latest I 

 have recorded." 



Halcyon smyrnensis (Linn.). The White-breasted Kitu/Jish' r. 



Halcyon fuscus (Bpdd.\ Jerd. . Ind. i, p. 121. 



Halcyon smyrnensis (Linn.), Hume, Rough Draft N. $ E. no. 129. 



The White-breasted Kingfisher breeds all over the country from 

 March to July. It lays from four to seven eggs, five being the 

 normal number, in a hole which it excavates for itself, and which 

 varies in length from little over 1 to more than 3 feet, although, 

 as a rule, it does not exceed a couple. This hole is from 2| to 3 

 inches in diameter, and terminates in a chamber some 4 inches in 

 height and 8 in diameter. I have never found any nest, so to 

 speak, but both the passage and chamber often contain remains of 

 frogs, mole-crickets, and the like. 



The nest-holes are commonly pierced in banks of tanks and 

 canals, or streams, or pretty high up in cliffs overlooking rivers, 

 but the interior of wells is not at all an uncommon situation, and 

 in Bajpootana 1 had six eggs brought up to me from a nest-hole 

 situated nearly 100 feet below the surface of the country! The 

 reason for the birds going to such an extraordinary depth appeared 

 to be that the upper 90 odd feet passed through very loose soil, 

 where the well was lined with masonry, and it had to go below this 

 to pierce a hole. I have also taken the nest (and here the hole 

 was barely 18 inches deep) out of the mud bastion of an old native 

 fort, some 20 feet above the level of the water in the moat, and 

 again in an old mud wall of a deserted house far away in the 

 jungle. 



Mr. \V. Theobald makes the following remarks on the breeding 

 of this bird in Mergui : " Lays in the fourth week of March : 

 eggs tive in number ; blunt oval ; size 1'20 by 1'03 inch ; colour 

 pure white : gallery 1| foot, in a stiff bank near a road." 



Mr. AV. BlewittVrites : " I took the eggs of this bird in the 

 neighbourhood of Hansie on the 28th June and 4th and 18th of 

 July. They were laid in holes excavated in the canal-bank 

 without any lining or nest. In one nest-hole I found three, in 

 each of the others four eggs, and one of the latter sets were fully 

 incubated." 



Colonel G. F. L. Marshall, when at Saharuupoor, sent tne the 

 following note : " The eggs are laid in the latter half of April and 

 the beginning of May ; the young are hatched towards the end of 

 May. Domestic arrangements are commenced early in April. 



