390 
COMMON KING FISHER. 
than its covers ; feet syndactyle, inner toe 
and hallux very short, tarsus short. 
Types. — A. ispida, semitorquata, Sfc. 
Note. — Aquatic ; plumage blue or green, varied 
on the under parts with chestnut ; breed in 
holes. 
Europe, Asia, Africa. 
COMMON KING FISHER. 
Alcedo ispida. — Liw.i. us. 
PLATE XXVI. 
Alcedo ispida, King Fisher, Will. Linn Common King 
Fisher of British authors. 
The King Fisher is one of our most gaily 
tinted birds, and when darting down some wooded 
stream, and shone upon at times by the sunbeams, 
it may give some faint idea of the brilliant plum- 
age that sports in the forests of the tropics, and 
that flits from place to place like so many lights 
in their deeply shaded recesses. It is a bird by 
no means common any where, living in retired 
places, solitary or in pairs ; but it seems pretty 
evenly distributed, decreasing in frequency as we 
reach the north, where it also becomes station- 
ary only in winter, instances of its breeding 
having been very seldom recorded beyond the 
English border, or the south of Scotland. It 
