THE BELTED KINGFISHER. 361 



No. 158. 



BELTED KINGFISHER. 



A. O. U. No. 390. Ceryle alcyon (Linn.). 

 Synonym. — Commonly called plain Kingfisher. 



Description. — Adult male : Above, bright bluish gray, feathers with blackish 

 shafts or shaft-lines ; loosely crested ; edge of wing white ; primaries dusky, white- 

 spotted on outer web, narrowly white-tipped, broadly white on inner web ; coverts 

 often delicately tipped or touched with white ; tail- bluish gray above, the central 

 feathers with herring-bone pattern of dusky ; remaining feathers only blue-edged, 

 dusky, finely and incompletely barred with white ; lower eyelid white, and a white 

 spot in front of eye ; throat and sides of neck, nearly meeting behind, pure white ; 

 a broad band of bluish gray across the breast ; remaining under parts white, sides 

 under wing, and flanks, heavily shaded with blue-gray ;bill black, pale at base below ; 

 feet dark : Adult female : Similar, but with a chestnut band across lower breast, 

 and with heavy shading of the same color on sides. Immature : Like adults, 

 except that the plumbeous band of breast is heavily mixed with rusty (suggesting 

 chestnut of female). Length 12.00-14.00 (304.8-355.6) ; wing 6.21 (157.7) ; tail 

 3.84 (97.5) ; bill from nostril 1.69 (42.9). 



Recognition Marks. — "Kingfisher" size ; blue-gray and white coloration ; 

 piscatorial habits ; rattling cry. 



Nest, at end of tunnel in bank, four to six feet in, unHned. Bggs, 6-8, pure 

 white. Av. size, 1.31 x 1.04 (33.3 x 26.4). 



General Range. — North America from the Arctic Ocean south to Panama 

 and the West Indies. Breeds from the southern border of the United States north- 

 ward. 



Range in Ohio. — Common along streams and reservoirs ; resident southerly. 

 Found casually in winter throughout the state wherever streams are open. 



WHEN we were small boys and had successfully teased our fathers or 

 "big brothers to let us go fishing with them, we were repeatedly admonished 

 not to "holler" for fear of scaring the fish. This gratuitous and frequently 

 emphatic advice would have been discredited if the example of the Kingfisher 

 had been followed. Either because noise doesn't matter to fish, or because 

 he is moved by the same generous impulse which prompts the cougar to give 

 fair and frightful warning of his presence at the begining of an intended 

 foray, the bird makes a dreadful racket as he moves up stream and settles 

 upon his favorite perch, a bare branch overlooking a quiet pool. Here, altho 

 he waits long and patiently, he not infrequently varies the monotony of inces- 

 sant scrutiny by breaking out with his wierd rattle — like a watchman's call, 

 some have said ; but there is nothing metallic about it, only wooden. Again, 

 when game is sighted, he rattles with excitement before he makes a plunge; 

 and when he bursts out of the water with a wriggling minnow in his beak. 



