101 
RUFOUS-VENTED KINGHUNTER. 
Halcyon rvfiventer , Swains. 
PLATE XII. 
Above, pale shining blue *, wing-covers, interscapulars, tertials, 
and ends of the primaries, black ; beneath white, with the 
lower half of the body, the flanks, and under wing-covers, 
rufous *, crown grey \ bill and legs red. 
Martin Pecheur bleu et noir de Senegal ? PI. Enl. 356. 
The species we now name the Halcyon rufitenter 
has been, if we mistake not, long ago figured in the 
Planche Enluminees of Buffon, or at least the lower 
figure, at Plate 356, represents a bird very nearly 
allied to that now before ns. It seems, however, 
according to Sonnini, to have been overlooked by 
systematists as a variety of some other, and he ac- 
cordingly calls it the Martin Peclieur lieu et noir 
du Senegal, without, however, giving it a Latin 
name. Can this be the same as the Dacelo acteon 
of a French writer? At all events, we cannot adopt 
such mythological and unmeaning names, without 
setting at defiance all those sound and admirable 
rules of systematic nomenclature which have been 
laid down by the great masters of our science *. 
* See Classification of Birds, vol. i. page 228. 
