118 ALCEDINLDJE. 



Suborder HALCYONES. 



No caeca; oil-gland tufted ; 15 cervical vertebrae. Sternum with 

 four notches on the posterior margin ; manubrium simple, composed 

 of the spina externa only. Both carotids are present. Spinal 

 feather-tract well denned on the neck and not forked on the back, 

 so there is no dorsal apteriuin. Down present in adults on the tracts 

 not covered by feathers, a character absent in other suborders of 

 Anisodactyli. No accessory semitendinosus muscle. The two 

 plantar tendons are generally united, but the slip leading to the 

 hallux branches off from the flexor perforans digitorum above the 

 junction as in Meropes. In some cases however, as in Dacelo, this 

 slip unites with the flexor longus hdllucis, and the latter runs to 

 the fourth digit only and has no other connexion with the /. perf. 

 digitorum (Gadow in Newton's Dictionary of Birds, p. 617). 



Family ALCEDINID^B. 



Bill long, stout, pointed, with a rounded or slightly flattened 

 culmen ; tarsus and toes feeble ; the fourth or outer toe united to 

 the third for more than half its length, third and second united 

 tor basal third. 



Primaries 11, the first minute. Tail-feathers 12 (except in 

 Tanysiptera, which has 10). 



All Kingfishers lay white, glossy, rather round 

 eggs, very like those of Bee-eaters, almost always 

 in a chamber without lining, dug by the birds in the 

 earth at the end of a burrow from 6 inches to several 

 feet in length. There is sometimes, but rarely, a 

 layer of fish-bones on which the eggs are deposited. 



This family is generally divided into two sub- 

 families, but as Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, to whom we 

 Fig. 33. are indebted for an excellent monograph of the 

 Eight foot of Kingfishers, has shown, the distinction between the 

 A. ispida, \. two is not well marked. 



Key to the Genera. 



a. Plumage (of Indian species) black and white. CERYLE, p. 119. 



b. Plumage varied, not black and white. 

 a'. Tail shorter than culmen. 



a' r . Toes 4 ALCEDO, p. 122. 



b". Toes 3 CEYX, p. 127. 



