502 



THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



Phou by C. N. Mavrofenf] [Smyr 



KINGFISHER 



The photograph shoTvs the nature oj the favourite haunts of this species 



bill, he tells us, is coral-red, the 

 under-surface pure white, the back 

 and wings deep purple, while the 

 shoulders, head, and nape, and some 

 spots on the upper part of the back 

 and wings, are pure azure-blue. The 

 tail is white, narrowly edged with 

 blue. These birds live upon insects 

 and small land-mollusca, which they 

 dart down upon and pick up from the 

 ground just as the fish-eating species 

 pick up a fish. 



Of the forest-haunting species, 

 however, the best known is probably 

 the large and, for a kingfisher, dull- 

 coloured Laughing-jackass, or 

 Settler's Clock, of Australia. Its 

 food is of a very mixed character — 

 small mammals, reptiles, insects, and 

 crabs being devouredwith equal relish. 

 Since it is not seldom to be seen 

 bearing off a snake in its bill, it may 

 be regarded as a useful bird — sup- 

 posing, of course, the snake to be of 

 a poisonous variety. A good idea of 

 the bird in its native haunts is given 

 by the late ]\Ir. Wheelwright. " About 

 an hour before sunrise," he writes, " the bushman is awakened by the most discordant sounds, as 

 if a troop of fiends were shouting, whooping, and laughing around him in one wild chorus. 

 This is the morning song of the ' laughing-jackass,' warning his feathered mates that daybreak 

 is at hand. At noon the same wild laugh is heard, and as the sun sinks into the west it 

 again rings through the forest. I shall never forget the first night I slept in the open bush in 

 this country. It was in the Black Forest. I woke about daybreak after a confused sleep, and 

 for some minutes I could not remember where I was, such were the extraordinary sounds that 

 greeted my ears : the fiendish laugh of the jackass, the clear, flute-like notes of the magpie, 

 the hoarse cackle of the wattle-birds . . . and the screaming of thousands of parrots as they 

 dashed through the forest, all giving chorus, formed one of the most extraordinary concerts 

 I have ever heard, and seemed, at the moment, to have been got up for the purpose of 

 welcoming the stranger to this land of wonders on that eventful morning. I have heard it 

 hundreds of times since, but never with the same feelings that I listened to it then. The 

 laughing-jackass is the bushman's clock, and being by no means shy, of a companionable 

 nature, and a constant attendant on the bush-tent and a destroyer of snakes, is regarded, like 

 the robin at home, as a sacred bird in the Australian forests. It is an uncouth-looking bird 

 . . . nearly the size of a crow, of a rich chestnut-brown and dirty white colour, the wings 

 slightly chequered with light blue, after the manner of the British jay. The tail-feathers are 

 long, rather pointed, and barred with brown. ... It is a common bird in all the forest 

 throughout the year, breeds in the hole of a tree, and the eggs are white." 



Whilst the Kingfishers are remarkable for the wondrous beauty of their coloration, the 

 HdRNIJILLS, their allies, attract our attention rather by the grotesqueness of their shape, due to 

 the enormous size of the bill, and the still more remarkable horny excrescences which surmount 

 it in not a few species, forming what is known as a "casque." Absent in some of the 

 smaller and possibly more primitive forms, its gradual development may be traced, beginning 



