REVIEW. 317 



ment of its blue surface is easy enough to note. We have the 

 common Indian roller or Tas, and occasionally in the cold weather 

 the European roller visits our northern districts, especially Sind. 

 Mr. Blanford only admits lizards to the Indian roller's dinner-table with 

 a *' perhaps," but we have seen it eat both lizards and small snakes. 



The bee- eaters come nest, with no noticeable remark and no serious 

 alteration of nomenclature. , , 



Different is the case of the kingfishers. The pied kingfisher is 

 now finally separated from Ceryle rudis as C, vm'ia^ and contrarywiso 

 the little blue kingfisher is united to the European species Alcedo 

 ispida for good. The name hengalensis is well out of the way and 

 sindiana can scarcely be said to have ever been in it. Mr. Blanford 

 gives Khandii, Khandya, as Maratha names ; but in the Konkan the 

 true name is Dis. Our great kingfisher, Pelargopsis gurialj keeps 

 its place ; so does our middle-sized blue kingfisher, Halcyon smyr- 

 7iensis^ with the just remark that it is not much of a fisher, living 

 " chiefly on insects and small lizards, and sometimes on mice and land 

 crabs ;" the last three pretty strong diet for so small a bird. The 

 next set of birds are the hornbills. 



" Fleas are not lobsters," said Sir Joseph Banks (as reported, 

 we think, by Peter Pindar) ; and "hornbills are not toucans,"* says 

 Mr. Blanford, very truly and very necessarily. It is a reasonable func- 

 tion of this Society to enforce that doctrine, as also that " crocodiles 

 are not alligators," and one or two other dogmas of the sort. The 

 toucan and the alligator are not in India. The hornbills, however, 

 we have, and three in our province, including what is, perhaps, 

 the finest of the lot, Dichoceros hicornis^ the " garuda " of the 

 Konkans. This living caricature of the Prussian eagle is fairly 

 abundant as far north as the hills under Mahableshvar, and may 

 probably exist north of Bombay in Tungar and such places. Once 

 seen and heard, it is never forgotten. Mr. Blanford quotes a 



*" Toucan," Jerdon, 242, says that " this appears to be their name " {i.e., the horn 

 bills,) "in some of the Malayan isles, the word signifying a worker from the noise they make." 

 Now " Taking " certainly does mean a workman or " artisan " in Malay {vide Marsden's and 

 Elout's dictionaries sub voce, but neither gives it as meaning a hornbill, though " Tuo-ano-" 

 means a pheasant ; loliat pheasant is not stated. We cannot find " Toucan " in either of two 

 Dutch dictionaries, but the French, Spanish, and Portuguese all give it for the American 

 birds, of whom one conspicuous species is said to have a call hke " Tiicano " ! 





