BIRDS. 



53 



for our departed dumb friends, for heaven without them would lack to many the 

 highest potentiality of happiness. 



The true " Laughing Jackass," Dacelo gigas, of the Australian Colonies will be 

 a familiar object, both with regard to its form and its extraordinary vocal powers, to 



W. Sarille-Sent, Photo. 



NORTH QUEENSLAND LAUGHING JACKASS, Dacelo 



all visitors to the Zoological Society's Gardens in Regent's Park. To other than lay 

 readers it is scarcely necessary to explain that this bird is a giant member of the 

 Kingfisher family, so modified in its habits that it will thrive in an entirely waterless 

 country, feeding there upon snakes, lizards, insects, and small birds in lieu of fish. 

 The above-named largest and best known species of the genus is plentifully met with 

 throughout the southern colonies of .Australia, excepting Tasmania, and farther north 

 is represented by several allied species of scarcely less dimensions and frequently more 

 brilliant plumage. One of these species, Dacelo Leachii, obtained by the writer from the 

 vicinity of Normanton, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, North Queensland, yielded during 

 its some months' membership of the family menagerie several very characteristic 

 camera studies. One of the most interesting of these, reproduced on this page, 

 represents the bird in the act of having killed and snapped up a mouse, whose 

 delicacy of flavour he is anticipating by meditative contemplation preparatory 

 to swallowing it whole. This species of Dacelo is conspicuous for the brilliant 



