﻿CONCLUDING- BEMARKS. 



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must be included. The first of these is Tanysiptera, which embraces the most elegant and 

 beautiful of all the known Kingfishers. The habits are thus described to me in a letter 

 from my kind friend Mr. Wallace : — 



" These birds are all inhabitants of dense thickets or forests where there is soil free from 

 dense vegetation, from which they can pick up insects, small mollusks, or Crustacea. They 

 rest on branches three to five feet from the ground, and dart down on their prey, often witli 

 such force as to stick their bill into the ground, as shown by its being often covered with 

 mud. They are said to nest in deserted white-ants' nests or in caves or holes in banks. In 

 Aru T. hydrocharis was often brought me by the native boys alive. They caught them 

 before dawn, roosting under ledges of the coralline rocks which border the forest water- 

 streams in those islands." 



Now it is evident that among the Alcedinine genera now existing there is only one which 

 can be compared with Tanysiptera ; and that is Caridonax, which appears to me to be a 

 direct link between the foregoing genus and certain species of Halcyon. Beyond this 

 indication of affinity we have positively no direct characters by which to guide us as to 

 the correct position of the genus Tanysiptera ; for it differs from all other Kingfishers 

 in having only ten tail-feathers, and having the middle pair of these feathers elongated 

 and ornamented with a more or less distinct spatula or racket. I am therefore forced to 

 put Tanysiptera a little apart from the direct line of affinity in the chain of genera now 

 before us at the present day ; but I consider that it has direct connexion with Caridonax, 

 and, of the other forms, perhaps inclines towards Cittura, the intermediate links being now 

 missing. I have already stated that the genus Caridonax (which I would also include 

 among the Reptilivorous Kingfishers) forms the direct link between Tanysiptera and 

 Halcyon, the actual species most nearly approaching it being Halcyon leucopygia from the 

 Solomon Islands. The only remaining genus of Reptilivorous Kingfishers is Monachalcyon ; 

 and this, as far as I can see, shows no direct affinity to any existing genus, and the only 

 place I can assign to it is in the vicinity of Tanysiptera, to an allied form of which it may 

 at one time possibly have been connected. Only one species of the genus is known ; and 

 the outward facies of the adult inclines somewhat to certain species of Halcyon ; but the 

 young bird (vide the Plate of the species) indicates an affinity to Tanysiptera, near which 

 genus I have accordingly placed it. It is very probably derived from the same parent 

 stock and, being isolated in the island of Celebes, has been modified into its present form. 

 The second subfamily which I first proposed, was to contain those Kingfishers whose food 

 was mixed; and the large genus Halcyon is the type of this subfamily. Todirhamphus I 

 consider to be an offspring of Halcyon, whose place it supplies in the Pacific Islands : and 

 here probably isolation has assisted to favour the tendency to variation ; for while external 

 resemblances to the plumage of Halcyon still exist, the form of beak is more depressed, 

 showing, in my opinion, that circumstances had induced a more strictly insectivorous diet, 

 and as the necessity for the long thin beak of the fisher diminished, that organ became 

 more and more modified as the primary object of its employment vanished, till at last it 

 became depressed and flat as the bird became gradually more a feeder on insects. Syma, 



