THE WHITE-COLLARED KINGFISHER. 85 



474. HALCYON CHLOBIS. 

 THE WHITE-COLLARED KINGFISHER. 



Alcedo chloris, Bodd. Tall. PL Enl. p. 49. Alcedo collaris, Scop. Del Fl et 7-V/////. 

 Insub. ii. p. 90. Todiramphus collaris, Jcrd. B. Ind. i. p. 228. Halcyon 

 chloris, Shurpe, Mon. Alced. p. 229, pi. 87; Hume, S. F. i. p. 451, ii. p. 170; 

 Annstronrt, S. F. iv. p. oOG ; Hume Sf Dav. S. F. vi. p. 78; Hume, S. F. vii. 

 p.lC9,viii.p.8G; Kelliam, Ibis, 1881, p. 381 ; Oates, S. F. x. p. 187. Sauropatis 

 chloris, SaJmd U<c. Born, p. 103; Bl B. Burm. p. 71; Wald. Trans. Zool. Soc. 

 ix. p. loo. 



Description. Male and female. Forehead, crown, nape, a band under 

 the eye and car-coverts, upper back and scapulars green tinged with blue ; 

 ear- coverts and a narrow band encircling the nape black ; lower back, 

 rump, wing-coverts and upper tail-coverts bright blue; tail deeper blue ; 

 quills dark brown, broadly edged with deep blue ; lores black ; a band above 

 these extending to the eye white ; the whole lower plumage, under wing- 

 coverts and a broad collar round the neck pure white. 



Legs and feet plumbeous in front ; behind and the soles in some bluish, 

 in some pinkish grey j the upper mandible, tip and edge of lower mandible 

 greenish black ; rest of lower mandible pinkish white ; irides deep brown. 

 (Davison.) 



Length 9*5 inches, tail 2'9, wing 4, tarsus -6, bill from gape 2*2. The 

 female is of the same size. 



The White-collared Kingfisher appears to be found generally along the 

 sea-coast of British Burmah, penetrating inland for some distance at 

 times ; for I once shot a specimen near the town of Pegu, fully sixty miles 

 from the sea, but where the river is tidal and the water consequently 

 brackish. 



It extends up the coast to the Bengal Sunderbuns, but it has not been 

 recorded from any other part of the peninsula of India except the neigh- 

 bourhood of Bombay. It has also been procured in the Red Sea, and it 

 probably will be found at various points of the intervening coast. It is 

 abundant in the Andaman Islands, and ranges down the Malay peninsula 

 to Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the further islands as far as New Guinea and 

 the Solomon group. It is also recorded from Siam and Cochin China. 



This Kingfisher is a bird of tidal waters, and lives principally on crabs 

 and fish left stranded on mud-banks at low water. According to Bernstein, 

 the nest is generally a plain hole in the earth protected by a stone or bush, 

 and the eggs are laid on a few dry leaves and pieces of moss. Mr. Davison 

 found this bird breeding in a deserted ants' nest in a garden in Tenasserim, 

 and he states that he noticed this Kingfisher in the town of Mergui seated 

 on the house-tops. 



