76 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



This species has a wide range over the whole of Australia and Tasmania, 

 but in the winter migrates into the northern districts of New South Wales 

 and Queensland. Outside Australia it is found in New Guinea, the Solomons, 

 New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and the Malay Archipelago. 



Though not so brilliantly tinted as the little Azure Kingfisher on the river 

 bank the Sacred Kingfisher is a striking little bird, with greenish-blue cap and 

 -coat, white collar, and buff waistcoat. Its nest is made in various situations 

 adapted to the locality in which its owners have taken up their quarters, 

 such as a hollow spout in a branch of a gum-tree, or a hole drilled into a 

 decayed bole where there is a " negro head " white-ants' nest on the tree 

 stem. A cavity is excavated in the side of the nest and the eggs are laid on 

 the floor of decayed wood. The eggs, four or five in number, are very round, 

 like those of most kingfishers, and pure-white. When nesting the birds 

 are very pugnacious, and often have to fight the big monitor lizards, which 

 eat their eggs and nestlings. At such times the birds' angry call-note is 

 easily recognised. 



In earlier works this bird was known as Toderhamphus aanctus ; but later 

 authorities placed it in the typical genus Halcyon, which is the old classical 

 name of the kingfisher. The (Greeks looked upon the kingfisher as a bird of 

 good omen, who built her nest on the crest of the ocean wave, which had to 

 keep smooth while she was nesting hence " halcyon days." The feathers of 

 the kingfisher were also treasured by them as a charm or amulet. 



The Naikeen Kestrel (Cerchneis cencroides Vig. and Horsf.). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 35, No. 13 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 83, No. 173. 



This is one of the smallest of our hawks, and before settlement destroyed 

 the hunting grounds of our birds of prey it was a very common sight to see 

 several hovering over the plain, their wings moving so rapidly that they 

 appeared to be almost stationary. 



The farmer is very prone to regard all hawks as enemies of f he fowl-yard, 

 and under this impression has shot many of this species, but the I have 

 never known this hawk to meddle with chickens, though the Sparrow-hawk, 

 which is about the same size, often makes a raid on the poultry-yard and 

 oarries off a young chicken. The food of the Nankeen Kestrel is chiefly small 

 grass lizards, young snakes, and grasshoppers when swarming on the plains. 

 Many years ago, when riding across the Terrick Plains in Northern Victoria, 

 I saw a pair of Nankeen Kestrels hovering in the air in their characteristic 

 attitude with a long streamer hanging from the claws of one of the birds ; 

 while watching them the object dropped from the hawk, and riding up I 

 iound lying on the grass a young brown snake, over eighteen inches in length, 

 battered and dead. 



This hawk, though it often occupies the deserted nests of crows and 

 magpies, frequently lays its four or five rather rounded, reddish-brown eggs, 

 blotched with darker brown, in the hollow spout of the overhanging branch 



