300 HALCYON SMTENENSIS. 



It is, perhaps, the first bird astir at daybreak, and when there is scarcely enough light to discern it, flies up 

 to the top of the highest tree near at hand and pipes out its plaintive trilling note for a considerable time, 

 and then makes off to some favourite outlook, uttering its loud harsh call, very different from that which it 

 has just indulged in. This latter is always uttered when the bird is on the wing, while the former is only 

 heard when it is perched. When a lizard, which is a favourite meal, is captured, it is hammered against a 

 stone or branch of a tree until dead, and then devoured whole, and crabs and mollusks are treated in the same 

 way when the bird has taken up its quarters by a stream. I have observed one launch out from a high tree, 

 in the manner described by Layard, on a butterfly ; but this writer records an evil deed against the lovely bird, 

 which is worthy only of such a cannibal as the Kotoruwa (Megakema zeylanica). He relates that one which 

 was " unluckily introduced into an aviary, destroyed most of the lesser captives ere he was detected as the 

 culprit ; he was at last caught in the act of seizing a small bird in his powerful bill ; he beat it for a moment 

 against his perch, and then swallowed it whole!" The habits of this species as observed in Palestine by 

 Canon Tristram are somewhat different to those which obtain with it in India and Ceylon. He writes : — " It 

 loves to sit moodily for hours on a slender bough overhanging a swamp or pool, where the foliage helps to conceal 

 its brilliant plumage, and where, with cast-down eyes and bill leaning on its breast, it seems benumbed or sleepy, 

 until the motions of some lizard or frog in the marsh beneath rouse it to a temporary activity. When disturbed, 

 it rather slinks away under the cover of the overhanging oleanders than trusts for safety to direct flight." In 

 one example he found a snake 18 inches long, entire. In the Holy Land it is solitary in habit as in Ceylon, 

 where, two birds are scarcely ever seen together. 



Nidification. — In the west and south of Ceylon this species breeds from January till April, and in the 

 north I have found its nest us late as .Inly. It nests in a bank generally near water or in the bund of a tank, 

 penetrating from 2 to 1 feet, and then excavating a large vault, sometimes 9 inches in width, in which it lays 

 its eggs, which are usually four in number, though sometimes six. In a nest which I took in the breach in 

 the great " bund" of Hurulle tank there were no bones, nor any thing used for a lining to the nest; the 

 passage and egg-chamber, however, frequently contain remains of frogs, lizards, &e., which have been taken 

 in by the old birds for feeding their young. The eggs are pure white, round in shape, and those that I have 

 seen from Ceylon vary from 111 to 1*2 inch in length by LO to L01 inch in breadth. In India this bird 

 often nests in mud walls and sometimes in open wells, Mr. Hume recording an instance of one building in a 

 hole iu the side of a well 100 feet below the surface of the ground. The eggs, when first laid, have, it is said, 

 a beautiful gloss ; but thej rapidly lose this, as those 1 have taken were rather dull than otherwise. Some 

 attain a size of L27 by 1/12 inch, or as large (as Mr. Hume remarks) as a Roller's egg. 



