296 PELAEGOPSIS GUEIAL. 



Female. Length 15-0 to 15-3 inches ; wing 6-0 to 6-3 ; tail 4-0 to 4-4 ; tarsus 0-8 ; bill to gape 3-8. 



Iris brown, chestnut-brown in some : eyelid dull red ; bill arterial blood-red, dusk)' at tips of both mandibles ; inside 

 of mouth coral-red ; legs and feet coral-red, claws dusk)'. 



Head and hind neck, including the face and ear-coverts, dull brown, tinged with greenish on the crown and hind neck, 

 which is most perceptible when the feathers are new ; forehead and lores slightly paler ; interscapular region and 

 scapulars dingy bluish green ; lesser secondary wing-coverts almost concolorous with the scapulars, while the 

 greater wing-coverts, outer webs and tips of secondaries, and tertials are dull greenish blue ; primaries and inner 

 webs of secondaries dark glossy brown, the basal portions of the outer webs of the primaries concolorous with the 

 blue of the secondaries, and the terminal portions faintly tinged with blue ; back and rump brilliant pale azure- 

 blue, with a silky lustre ; upper tail-coverts bluish green : tail greenish blue, with the inner webs changing into 

 French blue ; shafts deep black. 



Entire under surface, sides of neck, and a broad nuchal collar just below the lower cap orange-buff, paling to albescent 

 buff on the gorge and chin, and deepest on the flanks and under wing-coverts ; under surface, quills, and tail pale 

 brown. 



Females have the head scarcely tinged with greenish, and the brown in old feathers paler than in new. 



Young. Bill darker at the tips than in the adult ; eyelid yellowish red ; legs dusky red. Birds of the year have the 

 chin almost quite white, the buff of the under surface overcast with a brownish hue, particularly on the chest, 

 and the feathers of the fore neck, chest, nuchal collar, breast, and flanks with crescentic margins of brown, 

 coalescing on the sides of the chest, just beneath the point of the wing when closed, into a narrow band, which 

 joins the green of the interscapular region ; lores and forehead darker than in the adult ; least wing-coverts 

 faintly edged with fulvous ; ground-colour of the scapulars darker than in the adult. 



With age the dark pencillings on the under surface disappear from the chest and remain only on the sides of the 

 breast, from which they do not vanish until the bird is fully aged. 



Obs. The Ceylon race of this Kingfisher appears to be, as a rule, more tinged with green on the " cap " than Indian 

 birds, and resembles, in this respect, Pelargopsis malaccensis, Sharpe, differing from this, in the adult stage, in the 

 less dark mantle, although 1 must say young birds are very like the latter species : this is, however, a smaller 

 bird, the wings of two specimens measuring 5 - 55 and 5'G5 inches. Iudian examples of P. guridl from Madras 

 measure 5-7 to 5-95 inches in the wing, and 3-7 to 3*9 in the bill from the gape. Mr. Ball gives the following 

 dimensions, loc.cit. : — (Eahmehal) wing 0-l"> inches, bill from gape 3 - G : (Calcutta) wing 5-95, bill from gape 3'7 ; 

 (Satpuras), c?, wing 6"1, bill from gape 3 - 55. The Indian and Ceylonese bird comes very near to P.fraseri from 

 Java and P. burmanica from Burmah, two other closely allied species ; the former has the back and wings of that 

 peculiar blue tint considered to be characteristic of P. malaccensis, and the brown cap is sometimes absent. The 

 wing of an example which I have examined is 6*1, bill to gape 3 - 5 ; the latter has the cap very pale and the back 

 greyer than in P. gurial, being simply a pale form of this bird. All these species are so nearly allied that they appear 

 to me to be merely races of P. gurial; and I observe Mr. Hume remarks to the same effect, ' .Stray Feathers," 1877, 

 p. 19. Mr. Holdsworth was the first to rectify I lie synonymy of this species as a Ceylonese bird, Kelaart and Layard 

 having followed Jerdon's name of capensis, bestowed on it in the Madras Journal, 1840. 



Distribution. — This large and noisy Kingfisher is found more or less on all the rivers and wild streams 

 throughout the island, frequenting likewise the brackish lagoons and backwaters round the eastern and 

 northern coasts, and the large sea-hoard lakes of the Western Province; in the latter district it is found in 

 large jungle-begirt paddy-fields, and on the Gindurah, Kaluganga, Kelaniganga, and Maha-oya rivers. It is 

 also an inhabitant of the Ikkade-Barawe forest and other large jungles not far from Colombo which are 

 traversed by streams. It is pretty generally diffused through the hill-country near Galle, in which there are 

 numerous isolated paddy-fields lying between bills, and generally drained by a stream fairly stocked with fish. 

 The lonely tanks, particularly the smaller sheets of water surrounded by large trees which are scattered 

 throughout the northern half of the island, and the romantic rivers which flow both east and west through 

 that region from the hill-zone, are its favourite abode; along the whole course of the Mahawelliganga from 

 Kottiar to the base of the hills it is common, and, 1 believe, ascends this river into Dumbara, though it is not 

 of very frequent occurrence in that valley. 



Jerdon remarks of this Kingfisher that it is found over all India, from the extreme south to Bengal, 

 chiefly where there is much jungle or forest or where the banks of rivers are well wooded — precisely the 

 same conditions which regulate its habitat in Ceylon. Mr. Fairbank saw it at the base of the Palani hills, 



