THE KINGFISHERS 1833 



bare. The length of the bird is nearly five and one-half feet, the tail alone being 

 almost three feet long. The general color is brown, the quills black with white tips, 

 and the tail brown tipped with white, the tips being preceded by a black band. The 

 two central feathers are more than double the length of the next pair, and the outer 

 pair are entirely white. The under surface of the body is white, the breast being 

 brown, the bill yellow, with the posterior portion red, like the bare throat and neck 

 while the feet and iris are also red. Davison, who found this species in Southern 

 Tenasserim, where he procured a single specimen after much trouble in the ever- 

 green forests of Bankasori and Malwun, says that it is very shy, which is not to be 

 wondered at, since, whenever one appears near a village, every one who can shoot or 

 can get hold of a gun is sure to try and kill it, as the heads are in great demand for 

 carving into love charms, bringing as much as fifty rupees. "The birds," he 

 writes, ' ' confine themselves almost exclusively to the evergreen forests, where they 

 frequent the very highest trees. Their note is very peculiar, and can be heard at 

 the distance of a mile or more. It commences with a series of whoops, uttered at 

 intervals of about half a minute for five or ten minutes; then the interval between 

 each whoop grows shorter and shorter, till the whoop whoop whoop is repeated very 

 quickly ten or a dozen times, the bird ending up by going into a harsh, quacking 

 laugh. Then there is a pause of ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour or more, and 

 then it recommences. It chiefly utters this call in the morning and evening, but 

 occasionally also during the day. It never seems to descend to the ground, and it 

 feeds on fruit. ' ' 



THE KINGFISHERS 

 Family ALCEDINID^E 



It is scarcely possible to name a country in the world where kingfishers of 

 some sort or another are not found. Although they vary greatly in form and 

 habits, as a rule they have a long and somewhat pointed bill, but the shape of this 

 organ varies considerably in form, according as the bird is a fish catcher or a 

 devourer of reptiles and other food than fish. The structure of the foot, however, 

 scarcely changes throughout the group, for every kingfisher is flat-soled and has 

 an anisodactyle foot, with the toes for the most part united together, so that the 

 foot of these birds is by no means unlike that of a hornbill, to which group some 

 of the larger kingfishers make an approach in general appearance. Unlike so 

 many of the Picarian birds, most kingfishers have twelve tail feathers instead of 

 ten, though a few possess the ordinary Picarian number. As in the hornbills and 

 rollers, the deep plantar tendons of the foot are peculiar, the tendon which usually 

 supplies the first toe not serving that function in these three families, for the toe 

 in question is connected with the tendon which usually works the three front toes. 

 The eggs of the kingfishers are always laid in the hole of a bank of some kind, 

 or a tree, and are glossy white; while the young birds, when hatched, are naked 

 and helpless, although in a little while they become covered with feathers, each of 



