﻿Female. Similar to the male, but duller in plumage. 



Young. General colouration as in the old birds, but very much paler and duller; fore- 

 head distinctly marked with buff ; wing-coverts edged with fulvous; under surface of the 

 body barred with brown, each feather being edged with this colour; bill black, white at the 

 tip, dirty yellow at the base. 



Hah. Australia generally {Gould, Ramsay), Norfold Island (G. R. Gray), New 

 Caledonia (mus. R. B. S.), Loyalty Islands ( mus. Brit.), Pelew Islands (Semper), New Guinea 

 (Mutter), Salawati (ron Rosenberg), Aru Islands (Wallace), Goram (Wallace), Ceram {Wallace), 

 Amboina (Forsten), Waigiou ( Wallace), Gilolo (Wallace, Bernstein), Ternate (Bernstein), 

 Bourn (Wallace), Sula Islands (Wallace), Borneo (Mutter), Lombock (Wallace), Java 

 ( W. T. Fraser ; mus. R. B. S.J. 



Mr. George Robert Gray has given New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands as localities 

 where the Sacred Kingfisher occurs, but as there are no specimens in the British Museum 

 from these places I agree with Mr. Sclater in considering them not thoroughly authentic, 

 and I must wait for further information before including them in my list of habitats. 



Mr. Gould gives the range of the present species in Australia in the following words : — 



" The Sacred Kingfisher is very generally dispersed over the Australian continent. 

 I have specimens from nearly every locality ; those from Port Essington in the north are 

 precisely identical with those of the south coast ; on the other hand, those inhabiting 

 Western Australia are a trifle larger in all their measurements, but otherwise present no 

 differences of sufficient importance to warrant their being considered as distinct. It does 

 not inhabit Tasmania." 



Specimens are in my collection from New Caledonia and from most of the islands of the 

 Malay Archipelago, where it is generally distributed, ranging as far north as Borneo and Java, 

 from which latter island my friend Mr. W. T. Fraser has forwarded examples to me. 



The following extracts from Mr. Gould's " Handbook " give a good account of its 

 habits : — 



u The gaiety of its plumage renders it a conspicious object in the bush ; its loud 

 piercing call, also, often betrays its presence, particularly during the season of incubation, 

 when the bird becomes more clamorous as the tree in winch its eggs are deposited is 

 approached by the intruder. The note most frequently uttered is a loud pee-pee, continued 

 at times to a great length, resembling a cry of distress. It sits very upright, generally 

 perching on a small dead branch for hours together, merely flying down to capture its prey, 

 and in most instances returning again to the site it has just left. Its food is of a very 

 mixed character, and varies with the nature of the localities it inhabits. It greedily devours 

 mantes, grasshoppers, caterpillars, lizards and very small snakes, all of which are swallowed 

 Avhole, the latter being killed by beating their heads against a stone or other hard substance, 

 after the manner of the Common Kingfisher. Specimens killed in the neighbourhood of salt 

 marshes had their stomachs literally crammed with crabs and other crustaceous animals, 

 while intent on the capture of which it may be observed sitting silently on the low mangrove 

 bushes skirting the pools which every receding tide leaves either dry or with a surface of wet 

 mud upon which crabs are to be found in abundance. I have never seen it plunge into the 

 water after fish like the true Kingfishers, and I believe it never resorts to that mode of 

 obtaining its prey. On the banks of the Hunter its most favourite food is the larva; of a 

 species of ant which it procures by excavating holes in the nests of this insect, which are 

 constructed around the holes and dead branches of the eucalypti, and which resemble 

 excrescences of the tree itself. The season of nidification commences in October and lasts 

 till December, the hollow spouts of the gum and holes of the apple-tree (ayiyophorce) being 

 generally selected as a receptacle for the eggs, which are four or five in number, of a pinky- 

 white, one iuch and a line in length, and ten lines in dameter." 



