174 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



Of this species, Mr. Davison says : — " Occurs both at the' 

 Andamans and Nicobars, but is not common ; it is chiefly 

 found inland along the fresh water streams, but I have shot it 

 on the sea coast, and seen it among the mangroves bordering 

 the salt water creeks." 



My experience is that at the Andamans it is decidedly more 

 common than asiatica. 



134 Us. — Alcedo asiatica, Swainson. (8.) 



I have compared the Andaman birds with a specimen obtain- 

 ed in the Terai below Darjeeling, and find that the birds are 

 identical. This beautiful little Kingfisher is about the same 

 size as bengalensis, and in most respects is only an intensely 

 brightly colored edition of that bird, but besides the difference 

 of color it may at once be distinguished by the male having 

 the ear-coverts blue, instead of red as in bengalensis, and 

 by the female having, it is said, not only the ear-coverts red, 

 as in bengalensis, but the cheeks also, which in bengalensis, 

 are blue in both sexes. What I say of the female I give 

 upon Mr. Sharpe's authority : one specimen which Mr. Davison 

 shot, and himself carefully sexed as a female, differed only from 

 the male in having the lower mandible of the bill red instead 

 of black; the whole of the cheeks and ear-coverts were blue in 

 this bird also. It may perhaps be doubtful whether the adult 

 female has the cheeks red; it may possibly be that it is only the 

 voung birds of both sexes that have the red cheeks. We 

 unfortunately ourselves only obtained four specimens, three 

 undoubted males, and one the red-billed blue-cheeked bird, 

 which Mr. Davison considers was certainly a female. 



Later Captain Wimberley, who knew nothing about our doubts 

 on this subject, shot and sent us three males and one female, all 

 of which he himself carefully sexed. This female also only 

 differs from the male in having the lower mandible orange red. 

 I think this question of the, at present, received diagnosis of the 

 sexes perhaps requires reinvestigation. The above seems 

 prima, facie to afford some grounds for doubting whether the 

 adult female really has the cheeks and ear-coverts red, or differs 

 from the male in any way, except in the color of the bill, but 

 one cannot argue safely from two specimens. 



The following are the dimensions taken in the flesh of the 

 three undoubted adult males : — 



Length, 6*25 to 6*5 ; expanse, 9*25 to 9*75 ; wing, 2"55 to 

 2-62 ; tail, 1-4 to 1'75 ; tarsus, 03 to 035 ; bill, from gape, 



