KINGFISHERS. 401 



in Cuba, saw a tody dig with its bill. Two weeks later he found the burrow finished. 

 It consisted of a horizontal tunnel about four inches long, ending in a nest-chamber 

 in which were deposited the pure white eggs. 



Like all the other Picarian families, the kingfishers, or ALCEDINID^E, form a very 

 well circumscribed group, separated from all the others by gaps which future paleon- 

 tological discoveries may bridge. But now, since the internal structure of all these 

 forms has become better known, it has been possible, with some degree of certainty, 

 to decide upon the mutual relationships. It is interesting in this connection to 

 remark that various authors, looking from different points of view, some from 

 external others from internal characters, came to the same conclusion: viz., that 

 the kingfishers are most nearly allied to the hornbills, in spite of the enormous super- 

 ficial dissimilarity in structure, habits, and food. We shall return to this point later 

 in connection with the latter family. 



When, in 1871, Mr. R. B. Sharpe finished his monograph of the present family, he 

 considered it to consist of one hundred and twenty-five species. Since then, various 

 new species have been described, and altogether we may estimate the number of spe- 

 cies to be about one hundred and fifty, concerning the geographical distribution of which 

 Dr. Wallace remarks as follows : 



" The kingfishers are distributed universally, but very unequally, over the globe, and 

 in this respect present some of the most curious anomalies to be found among birds. 

 They have their metropolis in the eastern half of the Malay Archipelago, from Celebes 

 to New Guinea, in which district no less than thirteen out of the nineteen genera 

 occur, eight of them being peculiar ; and it is probable that in no other equally varied 

 group of universal distribution is so large a proportion of the generic forms confined 

 to so limited a district. From this centre, kingfishers decrease rapidly in every direc- 

 tion. In Australia itself there are only four genera with thirteen species ; the whole 

 Oriental region has only six genera, one being peculiar ; the Ethiopian also six 

 genera, but three peculiar ; and each of these has less than half the number of spe- 

 cies possessed by the Australian region. The Palaearctic region possesses only three 

 genera, all derived from the Oriental region ; but the most extraordinary deficiency is 

 shown by the usually rich Neotropical region, which possesses but a single genus, 

 common to the larger part of the eastern hemisphere, and the same genus is alone 

 found in the Nearctic region, the only difference being that the former possesses eight, 

 while the latter has but a single species. These facts almost inevitably lead to the 

 conclusion that America long existed without kingfishers ; and that in comparatively 

 recent times perhaps during the miocene or pliocene period a species of the Old 

 World genus, Ceryle, found its way into North America, and, spreading rapidly south- 

 ward along the great river-valleys, has become differentiated in South America into the 

 few closely allied forms that alone inhabit that vast country the richest in the world 

 in fresh-water fish, and apparently the best fitted to sustain a varied and numerous 

 body of kingfishers." 



We have in our plate the representatives of the two sub-families into which the 

 kingfishers are divisible, viz., the common European kingfisher (Alcedo ispidd), type 

 of the Alcedininae, characterized by the long scapular feathers forming a kind of 

 mantle covering the back, and the white-headed halcyon (Halcyon semicoendea)^ one 

 of the Halcyoninae, in which the scapulars are short. To this latter group, which 

 embraces the omnivorous and reptilivorous species, belong the giants of the family, 

 among others the giant kinghunter of Australia. The latter is now so popular a bird 



VOL. IV. 26 



