126 MALAYAN ORNITHOLOGY. 
fisher. 
This magnificent bird is fairly plentiful, particularly about the 
jheels of the interior. I shot several on Saiyong and Kéta Lama 
jheel, Pérak ; one of them, a female, shot on 24th March, 1877, was 
132 inches in length, bill scarlet. 
Hatcyon SMYRNENSIS (Linn.). The White-breasted Kingfisher. 
By far the most common of all Malayan Kinefishers ; it is a 
very widely distributed species ; I have shot specimens as far East 
as Hongkong (that is to say, if the Chinese and Malayan birds 
are identical, which they seem to be); westward it is plentiful 
throughout India and Ceylon, according to Jmerpon extending even 
to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. 
In Canton the skins of this Kinefisher are articles of commerce. 
the beautiful azure-blue plumage of the upper parts being much 
used in the manufacture of jewelry, and I saw ear-rings and other 
trinkets in which particles of its feathers had been so deftly worked 
as to look exactly lke blue enamel. 
In the Malay Peninsula it is exceedingly abundant about the 
wooded jheels and rivers of the interior, though also plentiful 
among the paddy-fields of the cultivated districts ; it is occasionally 
met with in the mangrove-swamps bordering the coast, though 
near the sea its place is to a great extent usurped by the white- 
collared species (H. chloris). 
It appears to be more of a wanderer and of stronger flight than 
most of the Kingfishers; Loften saw it at some distance from 
water, frequently perched on the topmost bough of a tree utter- 
ing its harsh grating cry. 
I found it exceedingly plentiful on the banks of the Pérak river. 
In the neighbourhood of Kwala Kangsa it simply swarmed, and 
any morning I might have shot a dozen specimens; as it was, 
its beautiful plumage induced me to shoot many a one which, but 
for its fatal beauty, would have escaped. 
I am unable to distinguish any difference in the nbamage of the 
SOXES. 
Hatcyon prneata (Bodd.). The Black-capped Purple King- 
fisher. , 
Not so common as H. smyrnensis, still fairly plentiful through- 
