KINGFISHERS 109 
no Yankee blood-curdling yarn-spinner could equal 
him. 
“Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined, 
I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward, 
And thinning one bright branch of amber berries 
With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay 
Those lovely forms, imaged, as in a sky.” 
Had he described a couple of kingfishers sitting on a 
merry-go-round, drinking ginger-pop and eating apple 
tart, the poet would have been equally near the truth. 
The worst evil one can wish to a bird is for it to fall 
into the clutches of the poet ! 
Eighteen different kinds of kingfisher are found in 
India, and a group of birds more interesting to the 
biologist does not exist. As we have seen, the white- 
breasted kingfisher affords striking evidence on behalf 
of the theory of organic evolution ; the group, however, 
prove no less conclusively, in my opinion, the insuffi- 
ciency of the theory of natural selection alone to account 
for the origin of all new species. 
All kingfishers and their allies (except the aberrant 
form described above) have similar habits; why then 
the great diversity in their colour? We see in Madras 
the little blue kingfisher and the black-and-white species 
living side by side, each equally successful in the struggle 
for existence, and each carrying on the same trade; 
surely, then, if their colouring is due to the action of 
natural selection, both species should resemble one 
another in appearance. Yet as a matter of fact they 
do not. 
What has caused this divergence? This is a question 
to which a satisfactory answer has yet to be found. Let 
