36 Favourite Foreign Birds. 



only indifferently well upon the ground. With regard 

 to its dietary in its native woods, the Laughing Jackass 

 may be considered a most useful creature to mankind, 

 for it subsists on snakes, lizards, and noxious 

 insects, such as centipedes, scorpions, large caterpillars, 

 and so forth, of which it consumes an enormous 

 quantity, for the intestinal canal being short, digestion 

 proceeds with great rapidity, so that an hour or so 

 after it has swallowed say a snake as long as itself, 

 the Laughing Jackass is quite ready for another meal. 



The crest is black, shaded with brown, and the rest 

 of the upper surface is brownish-olive; the wings, 

 however, are brownish-black, some of the wing coverts 

 presenting reflections of green and blue ; the breast and 

 belly are white, with bars of pale brown across the 

 former. The long tail is chestnut-brown, with a band 

 of black towards the lower third of the feathers, 

 which are tipped with white. 



In the house it may be fed on meat (raw preferably), 

 frogs when procurable, insects of all kinds, snails and 

 slugs, and small dead birds : the tast-named it will 

 greedily devour, though in its wild state it does not 

 prey on birds or animals, but solely on reptiles and 

 insects. Being a large bird, and eating and voiding 

 copiously, the Dacelo is not well adapted to cage-life ; 

 but in a large aviary it will do very well, and after 

 the first cold season in this country when it should 

 be taken into the house it may be safely wintered 

 out of doors. I have heard of no instance in which 

 it has bred in confinement. 



THE AUSTRALIAN KINGFISHER, Halcyon sancta, 

 which replaces the preceding species in Northern 



