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HALCYON SMYENENSIS. 
It is, perhaps, the first bird astir at daybreak, and when there is scarcely enough light to discern it, flit s up 
to the top of the highest tree near at hand and pipes out its plaintive trilling note for a considerable time, 
and then makes off to some favourite outlook, uttering its loud harsh call, very different from that which it 
has just indulged in. This latter is always uttered when the bird is on the wing, while the former is only 
heard when it is perched. When a lizard, which is a favourite meal, is captured, it is hammered against a 
stone or branch of a tree until dead, and then devoured whole, and crabs and mollusks are treated in the same 
way when the bird has taken up its quarters by a stream. I have observed one launch out from a high tree, 
in the manner described by Layard, on a butterfly ; but this writer records an evil deed against the lovely bird, 
which is worthy only of such a cannibal as the Kotoruwa (. Megalama zeyianica ) . He relates that one which 
was “ unluckily introduced into an aviary, destroyed most of the lesser captives ere he was detected as the 
culprit • he was at last caught in the act of seizing a small bird in his powerful bill ; he beat it for a moment 
against his perch, and then swallowed it whole!” The habits of this species as observed in Palestine by 
Canon Tristram are somewhat different to those which obtain with it in India and Ceylon. He writes “ It 
loves to sit moodily for hours on a slender bough overhanging a swamp or pool, where the foliage helps to conceal 
its brilliant plumage, and where, with cast-down eyes and bill leaning on its breast, it seems benumbed or sleepy, 
until the motions of some lizard or frog in the marsh beneath rouse it to a temporary activity. When disturbed, 
it rather slinks away under the cover of the overhanging oleanders than trusts for safety to direct flight.” In 
one example he found a snake 18 inches long, entire. In the Holy Land it is solitary in habit as in Ceylon, 
where two birds are scarcely ever seen together. 
Nidification . — In the west and south of Ceylon this species breeds from January till April, and in the 
north I have found its nest as late as July. It nests in a bank generally near water or in the bund of a tank, 
penetrating from 2 to 4 feet, and then excavating a large vault, sometimes 9 inches in width, in which it lays 
its eggs, which are usually four in number, though sometimes six. In a nest which I took in the breach in 
the great “ bund ” of Hurulle tank there were no bones, nor any thing used for a lining to the nest ; the 
passage and egg-chamber, however, frequently contain remains of frogs, lizards. See., which have been taken 
in by°the old birds for feeding their young. The eggs are pure white, round m shape, and those that I have 
seen from Ceylon vary from M4 to 12 inch in length by TO to L04 inch in breadth. In India this bird 
often nests in mud walls and sometimes in open wells, Mr. Hume recording an instance of one building m a 
hole in the side of a well 100 feet below the surface of the ground. The eggs, when first laid, have, it is said, 
a beautiful gloss ; but they rapidly lose this, as those I have taken were rather dull than otherwise. Some 
attain a size of 1'27 by 1T2 inch, or as large (as Mr. Hume remarks) as a Roller’s egg. 
