46 THE NIGHTJARS, BEE-EATERS & KINGFISHERS, 



Its beak is coral red and three inches long, its shirt 

 front spotless white, its vest and also its whole head 

 and neck rich chestnut brown, its shoulders glossy 

 black, and the rest of its wings, back and tail, brilliant 

 blue. When it flies, a broad white band opens on its 

 wings. The White-breasted Kingfisher is a bird of 

 gardens and hence fond of Bombay. Wherever there 

 is anything like a tank, or pond, or even a shallow 

 well with a tree overhanging the water, there you will 

 find it. It will even visit a garden tub and enjoy a 

 plunge bath. The two conditions'it asks for are shade 

 and water. Doubtless it enjoys these itself, but that 

 is a secondary reason for its seeking them. The pri- 

 mary reason is that little frogs enjoy them and it enjoys 

 little frogs, for, though a member of a fishing caste, it 

 is itself but a poor fisher. It is happily not fastidious. 

 Water insects, crabs, anything in short that it can 

 catch and swallow, is welcome. A friend of mine intro- 

 duced one into an immense aviary, in which he kept 

 a great variety of small birds, and forthwith the little 

 amadavats began to disappear rapidly and mys- 

 teriously. He caught the culprit at last in flagrante 

 delicto and ejected it. The White-breasted Kingfisher 

 lays five or six pure white eggs, during the hot sea- 

 son, in a hole in a bank, or in the side of a well. 

 This bird has not a musical voice: few brilliant birds 

 have. Its commonest cry is a rattling scream, which 

 it utters when flying ; but it has also a shrill, plaintive 

 call, which seems to relieve the monotony of sitting 

 alone, watching for fishes. 



A far cleverer fisher is the little bird which Jerdon 

 calls the Common Indian Kingfisher (Alcedo ben- 

 galensis ), but which is now admitted to be identical 



