116 BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS. 



in holes of trees or banks, and in Malta, where trees are 

 scarce, is reported to have built on the ground. The eggs, 

 from four to seven in number, are of a lustrous white. 



HALCYONDXaB. KINGPISHEES. 



The Kingfishers are distributed over many parts of the 

 globe, and some, which inhabit desert regions, prey upon 

 snakes and other reptiles; others again feed on insects, and 

 some of the largest species on Crustacea. Our common 

 British species lives partly on small fish, which it seizes by 

 a sudden plunge, afterwards killing its prey by repeatedly 

 beating it against a bough. The members of this family 

 are not all so splendid in their plumage as our native 

 species. The largest form in it is an Australian species, 

 known by the colonists by the strange and inelegant sobri- 

 quet of the " Laughing Jackass," which name it has received 

 from its singular and startling laugh, which somewhat re- 

 sembles the syllables yah-yah-yah, commenced in a low but 

 gradually ascending to a high and loud tone. Snakes are 

 its favourite food, and on this account it must be valuable 

 to man, notwithstanding the occasional depredations among 



