Ill 



Subclass DESMOGNATHvE. 



Order I. COCCYGES. 



Suborder COCCYGES ANISODACTYLI. 



Family ALCEDINIDiE. 



Genus ALCEDO. 



Ispida apud Brisson, Orn. iv. p. 471 (1760). 

 Alcedo, Linnseus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 179 (1766). 



The Kingfishers are very richly coloured birds, inhabiting, as a rule, the warmer portions of the 

 globe. The genus Alcedo contains nine species, which are distributed in the Paleearctic, the 

 northern part of the Ethiopian, the Oriental, and Australian Regions, only one species being 

 found in the Western Palsearctic Region. They are solitary in their habits, frequenting rivers, 

 streams, and sheets of water, feeding on small fishes and aquatic insects, which they usually 

 capture by darting on them from an elevated perch. They are, as a rule, not noisy ; and their 

 note is a not unmusical though shrill scream. Their flight is direct and very rapid ; and they 

 usually skim near the surface of the water. They nest in holes in banks, which they generally 

 excavate for themselves, and deposit their eggs, which are roundish in shape and pure glossy 

 white, on a lot of fish-bones, which they collect together at the enlarged end of the nest-hole. 



Alcedo ispida, the type of the genus, has the bill longer than the head, straight, pentagonal 

 at the base, then four-sided, compressed, and tapering to a point ; gape-line straight, commencing 

 beneath the eyes ; nostrils elongated, oval, exposed, the nasal membrane short ; wings short, 

 broad, concave, rounded, the first quill obsolete, the third and fourth about equal and longest ; 

 tail very short, rounded ; feet small and feeble ; the tibia bare below ; tarsus short, indistinctly 

 scutellate; toes slender, the anterior united to nearly half their length; claws arched, com- 

 pressed, acute. 



A closely allied species, Alcedo bengalensis, Gmel. (Syst. Nat. i. p. 450, 1788), differing from 

 Alcedo ispida by its smaller size, longer bill, and deeper blue coloration, has been met with in 

 North-east Africa, and probably occurs just within the south-eastern limits of the Western 

 Palsearctic Region ; but I have not deemed it advisable to include it in this work. 



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