BELTED KINGSFISHER. 227 
whitish ; wings, black, with a small spot of white at the base of the 
rimaries, and tipped with white; a stripe of black .,usses along the 
ront, through each eye, half way down the side of the neck; eye, 
dark hazel, sunk below the eyebrow; tail, cuneiform, the four middle 
feathers wholly black ; the four exterior ones, on each side, tipped, more 
and more with white to the outer one, which is nearly all white; 
whole lower parts, white; and in some specimens, both of males and 
females, marked with transverse lines of very pale brown; bill and 
legs, black. ; 
The female is considerably darker both above and below, but the 
black does not reach so high on the front; it is also rather less in 
size. 
> 
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BELTED KINGSFISHER. —ALCEDO ALCYON.— Fre. 105. — 
FEMALE. 
Bartram, p. 289.— Turton, p. 278. — Peale’s Museum, No. 2145. 
ALCEDO ALCYON.— Linnxvus.* 
Alcedo aleyon, Bonap. Synop. p. 49.— The Belted Kingsfisher, Aud. pl.77; Orn. 
: . Biog. i. p. 394. 
Tus is a general inhabitant of the banks and shores of all our 
fresh water rivers, from Hudson’s Bay to Mexico; and is the only 
species of its tribe found within the United States. This last circum- 
numerous. Its nest was found in a bush of willows, built of twigs of Artemesice 
and dried grass, and lined with feathers; the eggs, six in number, were very pale 
yellowish gray, with many irregular and confluent spots of oil green, interspersed 
with a few of smoke gray. ‘ 
The merit of unravelling this species from several very closely allied to it'in its 
native country, and from that to which it approaches nearest, the L. excubitor of 
Europe, is due to Mr. Swainson; the chief distinctive characters given by that 
naturalist are the small proportions of the bill, the frontal feathers crossed by a 
narrow band of decp black, the black stripe on the side of the head encircling the 
upper margin of the eyelid, lateral scales of the tarsus being divided in several 
pieces, the shorter length of the wing when closed, and in the tail being more 
graduated ; the total length is nine inches, six lines. 
4. Lanius elegans, Sw. — White-crowned Shrike. , 
Described by Mr. Swainson, from a specimen in the British Museum, to which 
it was presented from the Fur countries by the Hudson’s Bay Company. It may 
at once be distinguished from the other Amenican Shrikes, by the much greater 
quantity of white on the wings and tail ; its narrower tail-feathers, longer tarsi, and 
less curved claws; the length is about nine inches. 
5. Lanius (?) natha, Penn. — Natka Shrike. 
‘This species, the Nootka Shrike of Dr. Latham, from Nootka Sound, on the 
north-west coast of North America, seems to be of such dubicus authority, that little 
can be said regarding it. — Ep. . 
* The description of Wilson, and that of Audubon, whicly has been added in a 
note from the Ornithological Biography, give a very correct detail of the general 
manners of the true Kingsfishers, or those resembling that o” this country 3 there is 
throughout the family, however, a very considerable differere in form, and, as a 
matter of course, a corresponding difference. in habit; this has occasioned a di- 
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