﻿rump, upper tail-coverts and upper surface of the tail blue, with a slight greenish tinge in 

 some lights, under surface of the latter greyish black ; under surface of the body white ; 

 bill black, yellowish at the base of the lower mandible ; feet dull red. Total length 9 - 

 inches, bill 1*8, wing 4*6. 



Adult. Top of the head blue, with a faint tinge of green towards the forehead ; a 

 broad white line passing from the base of the bill over the eye and encircling the head ; 

 below this a line of black feathers tinged with blue running under the eye, round the back 

 of the neck, and enclosing the ear-coverts ; sides and back of the neck white, forming a 

 nuchal collar; back and scapulars dull greenish-blue; wing-coverts brighter blue, inclining 

 to cobalt ; quills black, the inner web white at the base, the outer web, especially of the 

 secondaries, edged with blue; lower portion of the back, rump and upper tail-coverts bright 

 blue inclining to cobalt ; tail black, crossed with indistinct narrow bars, the upper surface 

 deep blue, the under surface greyish-black ; entire under surface of the body white ; 

 bill black, yellow at the base of the lower mandible ; feet reddish-olive ; eyes dark -brown. 

 (Tongataboo.) 



Young. Similar to the adult, but has the line of feathers surrounding the crown 

 bright buff, and the white nuchal collar is also faintly tinged with the same colour ; the 

 blue-colour of the head and body very bright. {Tongataboo.) 



Another specimen has the superciliary line not so strongly tinged with buff. ( Tongataboo.) 



Another specimen has the superciliary line more plainly tinged with buff, traces of 

 this colour being apparent also on the forehead ; slight traces of transverse marks are to 

 be seen on the back of the neck and sides of the breast. {Tongataboo.) 



Another specimen has no trace of buff on the superciliary line, but grey transverse 

 markings on the feathers of the neck and sides of the breast, and has also fulvous edgings 

 to the wing-coverts. (Tongataboo.) 



Hah. Fiji Islands : Viti Levu (Griiffe), Ovalou (Griiffe). Friendly Islands : Tongataboo 

 (Home, Brencliley). Samoa Islands : T utuila (Peale). 



The three groups of islands to which the present bird is confined are given by me above, 

 and I believe that ail other habitats with which the species is accredited are erroneous. At 

 all events, these are the only ones which I believe to be authentic, so that I leave the exact 

 range to be determined by some good Naturalist like Mr. Wallace, who will visit the islands 

 of the Pacific Ocean and correctly determine the limits of the various faunas, for I am 

 convinced that many of the localities assigned to the birds from Oceania are altogether wrong. 

 I cannot find in the map the locality of Santa Christina, where Forster mentions that he 

 procured a Kingfisher, which he considered to be a further variety of his Alcedo collaris, var. 1 

 (from TongatabuJ. This latter bird is certainly H. sacra, and I believe his var. 2 is only a 

 little older specimen of the same bird. 



Although Ornithologists have differed much in their determination of the " Sacred 

 Kingfisher " of Latham, I believe that there can be little doubt that the bird here figured 

 by me is really the species described by the above-named author, his " var. A" being the 

 more adult bird. The variations in plumage of this Kingfisher are remarkable, and although 

 I have figured three of the stages, there still remain one or two phases which I have not 

 represented in the plate. Thus birds are met with which have the plumage inclining to 

 bright blue with a cinnamon cincture encircling the crown, while in another stage, probably 

 more adult, the plumage of the back is greenish blue and the superciliary cincture white, 

 while the very old bird probably gets apure white head. I have never seen a specimen with 

 an absolutely white head, but there are examples in Mr. Gould's collection and in the 



