BIRDS. 53 
for our departed dumb friends, for heaven without them would lack to many the 
highest potentiality of happiness. 
The true “ Laughing Jackass,” Dacelo gigas, of the Australian Colonies will be 
a familiar object, both with regard to its form and its extraordinary vocal powers, to 
W. Saville-Kent, Photo, 
NORTH QUEENSLAND LAUGHING gAcKass, Dacelo Leachii. 
all visitors to the Zoological Society’s Gardens in Regent’s Park. To other than lay 
readers it is scarcely necessary to explain that this bird is a giant member of the 
Kingfisher family, so modified in its habits that it will thrive in an entirely waterless 
country, feeding there upon snakes, lizards, insects, and small birds in lieu of fish. 
The above-named largest and best known species of the genus is plentifully met with 
throughout the southern colonies of Australia, excepting Tasmania, and farther north 
is represented by several allied species of scarcely less dimensions and frequently more 
brilliant plumage. One of these species, Dacelo Leachii, obtained by the writer from the 
vicinity of Normanton, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, North Queensland, yielded during 
its some months’ membership of the family menagerie several very characteristic 
camera studies. One of the most interesting of these, reproduced on this page, 
represents the bird in the act of having killed and snapped up a mouse, whose 
delicacy of flavour he is anticipating by meditative contemplation preparatory 
to swallowing it whole. This species of Dacelo is conspicuous for the brilliant 
