336 AVES—SUB-ORDER HALCYONES. 



The Kingfishers agree with the Rollers in most of their anatomical 

 characters, having a desmognathous, or "bridged," palate, and the 

 hallux connected with the flexor perforans digitorum 

 The Kingfishers.— tendon; but they differ from them in having the spinal 

 Sub-order feather-tract not forked on the back, and in other 



Halcyones. characters. The eggs are white, and are always con- 



cealed in the hole of a tree or bank, no nest being made. 



Kingfishers may be divided into two sub-families, Alcedinintz and 

 Dacelonince. The former contain the " fishers," and the latter the 

 omnivorous feeders, whose food consists of Crustacea, insects, reptiles, etc. 



In these birds the bill is long and slender, mu:h compressed, and with an 

 evident keel along the culmen. There are five genera comprised in this sub- 

 family, of which the genus Alcedo, which contains our 

 The Fish-Eating Common Kingfisher, is the type. There are, however, 

 Kingfishers.— £ub- two long-tailed genera of fish-eating species, the Pied and 

 family Alcedtninm. Green Kingfishers {Ceryle) and the Stork-billed King- 

 fishers (Pelargopsis), which have the tail longer than the 

 wing. The three other genera, Alcedo, Corythornis, and Alcyone, have short 

 tails, in no case as long as the wings. 



The Stork-billed Kingfishers (Pelargopsis) are large birds with long red or 

 black bills, and they are inhabitants of the Indian and Indo-Malayan sub- 

 regions. They are mainly piscivorous, but Mr. Stuart Baker records that 

 in Cachar he has known the species of the country (P. burmanica), to devour 

 lizards and other small reptiles, while he once saw one attack a nest of young 

 Mynas in a hole of a tree, and drag one of them out and swallow it. 



The genus Ceryle is remarkable among the Kingfishers for the difference in 



the markings of the sexes, the male in some species having a double pectoral 



band, whilst in others the contrary is the case, and the 



The Pied King- males or the females have a band, while the opposite sex 



fishers— has none at all. The Pied Kingfishers are inhabitants of 



Genus Ceri/le. Africa, India, China, and Japan, and the best-known 

 species is Ceryle rudis of Africa, over the whole of which 

 continent it is distributed, while it ranges east as far as the Persian Gulf 

 The colour above is black, varied with white, and the under-surface is white, 

 with two black bands across the chest in the male, and a single band in the 

 female. It is a familiar bird to travellers in the Nile Valley, as it hovers 

 above the water like a Kestrel, and falls on its prey with a stoop like that of 

 the latter bird. In India and China it is replaced by the Indian Pied King- 

 fisher {Ceryle varia), which has no black spots on the white base of the tail. 

 In the Himalayas and the mountains of China, as far as those of the southern 

 island of Japan, the Pied Kingfishers are represented by Ceryle lugvhris, a 

 large species with the hovering habits of 0. rudis, and equally a fish-eater. 

 In Africa there are also some large species of Ceryle, with grey backs, and 

 in America a similar section of the genus is met with, of which the Ringed 

 Kingfisher {Ceryle torquata), and the Belted Kingfisher (C. alcycm), are well- 

 known representatives. The latter species has a pectoral band of grey in the 

 male, while the female has an additional band of rufous. In the rest of the 

 South American species of Ceryle the back is green, and in this section 

 occurs one of the smallest of all Kingfishers, C. sxiperciliosa, which is only 

 5 inches in length. 



The genus Alcedo is found over the greater part of the Old World, and 

 eleven species are known, of which Africa claims three, Europe and 



