404 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



bones supply. The hole is bored rather slowly, and takes from one to two weeks to 

 complete. 



u Few birds are connected with more fables than the kingfisher. The superstition 

 that a dead kingfisher, when suspended by a thread, would turn its beak to that par- 

 ticular point of the compass from which the wind blew, is now fortunately as dead as 

 the kingfishers on whom the experiment was tried. The classical fable that the breed- 

 ing season of the kingfisher was in midwinter, when the sea remained calm and undis- 

 turbed by tempests, is equally as inexplicable, and as profoundly forgotten." But still 

 we speak of 'halcyon days'! 



Our North American belted kingfisher ( Ceryle alcyon) is plainer colored, but much 

 larger and more powerful, so as to enable it to add a mouse now and then to its bill 

 of fare. 



Before dismissing the kingfishers we must mention that a few Old World species, 

 belonging to two genera, Ceyx and Alcyone, are only three-toed, having lost the 

 inner (second) toe. Structurally these two genera are very closely allied, but their 

 habits are said to differ, Alcyone being a fish-eater, while the small multicolorous 

 Ceyx feeds on insects, and loves the dense forest. 



We have already on a previous page hinted at the relationship of the BUCEROTID^E, 

 or hornbills, to the kingfishers, promising a fuller explanation of this seemingly extra- 

 ordinary assertion. We may then at first remark, that there is now pretty universal 

 agreement among ornithologists that the hornbills require a position somewhat inter- 

 mediate between the kingfishers and the hoopoes, having strong affinities to both, 

 and that the old arrangements either among the crows, on account of their size and 

 blackish coloration, or next to the toucans on account of the enormous large, light, 

 and cellular bills, are entirely out of question as highly superficial and artificial. 



Externally the hornbills and kingfishers agree nearly exactly in the shape of the 

 syndactylous foot, and Nitzsch, on pterylographical grounds, united them with Upupa 

 in one group, which he called Lipoglossas. They agree in having tufted oil glands, 

 and in lacking aftershafts and colic caaca. Hornbills and kingfishers, moreover, are 

 synpelmous, as shown before, and the deep plantar tendons of a hornbill has been 

 figured (Fig. 171B). As to the affinities to the hoopoes we may be allowed to quote 

 Dr. Murie : " Lastly, what in exterior appearance can be more opposed to each other 

 than such a great, unwieldly, horned bird as the rhinoceros hornbill and the graceful 

 hoopoe ? Yet patient inquiry leads apace to trace the steps of graduation. Admit- 

 ting that exuberance of casque, and many other external characteristics of the above- 

 mentioned hornbill, can hardly be reconciled with the idea of family relationship to 

 the hoopoes and Irrisors, it cannot be gainsaid that the BucerotidaB present extremes. 

 When Tockus is reached, size and outward peculiarities dwindle till we have a form 

 in which can be recognized semblance to certain of the Upupida3. There is still a 

 gap ; but the very manifold structural agreements and adaptations thereof to habits, 

 etc., are strong evidence of congruity." 



The gap between the two families may some day be filled, however, and a fossil 

 form, found in the tertiary deposits near Paris (Cryptornis antiquus), which Laurillard 

 has referred to the kingfishers, but which Milne-Edwards says is a hornbill, while 

 Murie points to certain conformations with the hoopoes, may not have been so very 

 distantly related to the common ancestor of the Lipoglossae. 



As it is, the hornbills form a very sharply defined group with many peculiar fea- 

 tures of their own. First is to be noted the extraordinary size and cellular structure 



