72 PICARIAN BIRDS. 



kingfisher, summoned up courage to attack him in earnest, whereupon he quickly 

 decamped." 



To the members of this genus it is ahnoat impossible to assign 

 a collective English name, for whereas in the Old World they are 

 pied, their Transatlantic cousins are either grey or green. The genus comprises 

 a small assemblage of long-billed and long -tailed kingfishers of fish-catching 

 habits; few of which ai-e such strongly built birds as their short -beaked 

 allies, although some of the Oriental forms are nearly their equals in size. 

 Their gi*eat distinctive feature is that the sexes differ in colour or markings ; 

 this difference generally displaying itself by the presence in either the male 

 or the female of an additional band on the breast Seventeen species of 

 these kingfishers are known, twelve of which are American. In colour, 

 most of the latter are glossy green, but four are grey; the best known species 

 being the belted kingfisher {Ceryle alcyon) of North America. In the Old 

 World all the species of the genus are either black-and-white, or grey-and-white. 

 One of the largest species is the great pied kingfisher (C. lugubris) from the 

 Himalaya and the mountains to the eastward of that chain throughout China to 

 Japan. The head is crested, the crest- feathei-s being black with white spots, and 

 there is a tuft of white feathers in the centre of the crown, while the rest of the 

 upper surface is banded with grey and white ; round the hind-neck runs a broad 

 white collar; the under surface of the body is white, with a chest- band of black 

 and white feathers, and the sides of the body are also barred with black. The 

 female is like the male in colour, but does not show the tinge of rufous on the 

 cheeks and breast-band which are to be seen in the male. The under wing-coverts 

 and axillaries are pale rufous, thus showing the sexual differences which are one of the 

 charactei-s of the genus. Writing of a nest with young found in the North- Western 

 Himalaya, Mr. Hume states that " the entrance was a large hole, fully four inches 

 in diameter, and at the end was a chamber fully ten inches across, in which were 

 four young birds ; in the chamber was a quantity of tlsh-bones and some grass. 

 The eggs are three or four in number, and the birds are in the habit of carrying to 

 their young fishes from six to seven inches in length, and these are always 

 swallowed whole." Mr. Stuart Baker writes that " I have seen but three nests of 

 this bird, the fii-st nest taken was found in July, and was placed at the end of a 

 short tunnel in a bank of one of the biggest rivers in North Kachar, the Diyung. 

 The burrow itself was about two feet long and the egg-chamber was over seventeen 

 inches long by nearly ten broad, the height being almost as much. The eggn, of 

 which there were four, reposed on a quantity of malodorous fish-bones, these 

 extending nearly a couple of inches up the sides of the walls and partially burying 

 the eggs, so this unpleasant material must have been added after the eggs were 

 laid. The soil in which these were found was loose and sandy. The second nest 

 was found by a Naga in a small stream called the Mahor, running between thickly- 

 wooded banks, nowhere much over fifty yards from bank to bank, and, where the 

 nest was taken, under thirty yards across. This nest was in dimensions much the 

 same as that already described, the entrance tunnel being a few inches shorter. 

 The fish-bones also were not so abundant in this nest, doubtless owing to its being 

 newer, as the eggs when found were quite fresh, whereas in the last they were 



