HALCYONINJE, 99 



Bill dark blood-red, dusky at tip, lighter on gonys ; irides 

 brown ; legs and feet coral-red. 



Head : lores, cheeks, and hind-neck in part light olive or fulvous- 

 brown ; the sides and lower part of the back of the neck buff; 

 lower part of hind-neck and scapulars dingy brownish-green ; 

 the wing-coverts, quills, the sides of the lower part of the back, 

 upper tail-coverts, and tail dull bluish-green ; the primary quills 

 tipped dusky -black and the inner webs of all dusky ; the back, 

 from the shoulders to the rump, light silky azure-blue ; chin 

 and throat pale yellowish-white, passing into the buff of the 

 ' sides of the neck ; rest of the lower plumage orange-buff, deepest 

 on the flanks. 



The young has the buff of the lower parts edged with brown, 

 and the colors generally duller. 



The Brown-headed Kingfisher occurs as a somewhat rare 

 straggler in the Deccan. I met with it at Neemuch, and Colonel 

 S win hoe found it near Mhow, Central India. It has not been 

 recorded from Guzerat, neither does it occur in Sind. 



GENUS, Halcyon, Swains. 



Bill long, straight, deep, and broad, somewhat quadrangular ; 

 culmen, in some, inclining towards the tip, near which the 

 margin is slightly sinuated ; lower mandible angulated ; gonys 

 ascending towards the tip ; wing rather short, third quill longest, 

 fourth and fifth nearly equal ; tail short, rounded, or even ; feet with 

 the outer toe nearly as long as the middle one, syndactyle for 

 more than half its length ; scales of the tarsus obsolete. 



Halcyon smyrnensis, Lin. 



129. Halcyon fuscus, Bodd. Jerdon's Birds of India, Vol. 



I, p. 224 ; Butler, Guzerat ; Stray Feathers, Vol. Ill, p. 456 ; 



Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 382 ; Murray's Vertebrate 



Zoology of Sind, p. 110 ; Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India; 



Ibis, 1885, p. 61. 



THE WHETE-BREASTED KINGFISHER. 



Length, 10'5 to 1T5 ; expanse, 14*25 to 16'5 ; wing, 4 '5 

 to 5 ; tail, 3'2 to 37 ; tarsus, 0'6 ; bill at front, 2'25 ; bill at gape, 

 27 to 3. 



Bill rich coral-red, dusky at tip ; irides brown ; feet vermilion-red. 



Head : face^sides of neck and body, abdomen, and under tail- 

 coverts, deep rich brown-chcsnut ; scapulars and tertiaries dul- 

 greenish-blue ; back, rump^ancllipper tail-coverts bright ccerulean 

 blue ; wings, with the lesser-coverts, chesnut, median-coverts 

 black, and the greater-coverts and winglet dull blue ; quills blue, 

 with a broad black tip diminishing to the last primary ; and the 

 inner webs of all dusky black, with a broad oblique white bar 

 on the inner webs of the primaries, extending over nearly the 

 whole feather in the last primary, small in extent on the first ; 



