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NOTES AND QUERIES. 



AVES. 



Notes on the White-breasted Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis. — 

 In ' The Zoologist ' for 1901 (p. 451), Mr. E. L. Gill notices the slow 

 sailing flight of certain birds, not normally singing on the wing, when 

 they occasionally do this. I have observed a similar peculiarity in the 

 White-breasted Kingfisher here (Calcutta). This bird occasionally 

 flies about slowly and aimlessly high in the air, uttering a peculiar 

 wailing cry, very different from its usual harsh caekle ; though this, 

 too, is given either on the wing, or just before starting on an ordinary 

 flight. I should like also to draw attention to two other peculiarities 

 of this bird. One is, that it occasionally practises piracy. An in- 

 dividual which haunts the Museum pond, whereon there are some 

 Dabchicks, has several times been seen by me to attempt to rob one of 

 these birds of a fish which it had captured, and once, at all events, 

 with success. On one occasion I saw the Kingfisher hovering over 

 something in the water, which turned out to be a Dabchick washing 

 itself; evidently he had for a moment mistaken the actions of his 

 victim, and thought it had caught something. The other point is, 

 that although this Kingfisher is as big as a Thrush, with plumage of 

 brilliant blue, bay, and white, and with a scarlet beak, it is not at all 

 conspicuous when seen across the Museum tank (about sixty yards 

 wide), whether it sits on a bamboo, or on a dark-foliaged tree ; 

 indeed, if one's eyes are taken off it, the bird is very hard to find 

 again. Yet in flight, at the same distance, it is a most striking object. 

 This shows that a plumage which appears most glaringly conspicuous 

 close at hand does not necessarily render its wearer easy to see some 

 distance off, if the colours are suitable for blending with the normal 

 environment of the species. If the bird were all bay or white instead 

 of partly blue, it would catch the eye at once. — P. Finn (Indian 

 Museum, Calcutta). 



A Little-known Action of the Kingfisher. — While recently fishing 

 on the Bela, my son saw a Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) splashing about 

 on the top of the water in rather a deep pool. Thinking the bird 



