KINGSFISHER. 62.7 



blue ; the green changing in fome lights to deep blue : the tail is 

 .alfo of a deep blue : but the middle of the back and tail coverts 

 are wholly of the bright azure : at the bafe of the upper mandible 

 is an orange fpot, at the upper corner of which is a fmall patch 

 of white, and under that a black mark : behind the eye is a broad 

 ilripe of a rufous orange-colour, paffing a little way on each fide 

 the neck, and beneath this, a patch of white : the chin is white, 

 with a tinge of rufous : and the reft of the under parts of the body 

 rufous orange : the legs are red. 



This bird is found not only in England, but throughout Europe, Place and 

 Afia, and Africa ; as fpecimens, precifely the fame with ours, have 

 been received from both China, Bengal *, and Egypt ; Belon -f- alfo 

 remarks his having met with it in Romania, and Greece y and Sco- 

 poli £ notices it as a bird of Carniola, where he fays it remains 

 the whole year, as in England; and indeed it bears the rigour of 

 the colder climates fo well, that among the Germans it has gained 

 the name of Eifzvcgel, or Ice Bird § : Olina fpeaks alfo of its not 

 regarding the ice and cold.\\ ; and Gmelin afTures us, that it is found 

 even in Tartary and Siberia ** : but, however this may be, there 

 are few winters in which many of thefe birds do not perifh, I 

 make no doubt, from cold merely ; as, to my knov/ledge, feveral 

 have been found frozen ftiff, by the fides of even running water, 

 without the leaft mark of violence about them. 



M. D'Aubenton has kept thefe birds for feveral months, by 

 means of fmall filh put into bafons of water, on which they have 

 fed ; for, en experiment, they have refufed all other kinds of 

 nourifhment. 



*jEVw.i. p. 11. f Hijt.t/esolf. p. 220. %An.\. p. 55. %Gefner, 



av. p. 55 1. || XJccel, p. 39. ** Voy. an Siber. ii. p. i\z. 



4^ 2 The 



