BLUE KINGFISHER. 
by Azure Kingfishers ; but as they, although closely allied, constitute at 
least three species, the present page must necessarily treat exclusively of the ■ 
one that inhabits New South Wales and South Australia, over the whole of 
which countries it is dispersed, wherever brooks, ponds and other waters 
occur suitable to its habits and mode of life. In size and in brilliancy of its 
plumage, the Azure Kingfisher is intermediate between the species inhabiting 
the north coast and that found in Tasmania ; although generically distinct 
from the Kingfisher of Europe {Alcedo ispida) it has many characters in 
common with that bird. It subsists almost exclusively on small fish and 
aquatic insects, which it captures in the water by darting do’wn from some 
' bare branch overhanging the stream, and to which it generally returns to kill 
and devour its prey, which is swallowed entire and head foremost, after the 
manner of the little favourite of our own island. It is a solitary bird, a pair, 
or frequently only one, being found at the same spot. During the breeding- 
season it becomes querulous and active, and even pugnacious if any intruder 
of the same species should venture within the precincts of its abode. The 
males at this season chase each other up and down the stream with arrow-like 
quickness, when, the rich azure-blue of the back glittermg in the sun, they 
appear more like meteors, as they dart by the spectator, than birds. The 
task of mcubation commences in August and terminates in January, during 
which period two broods are frequently brought forth. The eggs, which 
are of a beautiful pearly or pinldsh wliite, and rather round in form, are 
deposited at the extremity of a hole, in a perpendicular or shelvmg bank, 
bordering the stream, without any nest being made for their reception ; they 
are from five to seven in number, three-quarters of an inch broad by seven- 
eighths of an inch long. The young at the first moult assume the plumage 
of the adult, which is never afterwards changed. The hole occupied by the 
bird is frequently almost filled up with the bones of small fish, which are 
discharged from the throat and piled up round the young in the form of a nest. 
Immediately on leaving their holes the young follow the parents from one 
part of the brook to another, and are fed by them while resting on some 
stone or branch near the water’s edge ; they soon, however, become able to 
obtain their own food, and may be observed at a very early age plunging 
into the water to a considerable depth to capture small fish and insects. 
The sexes are precisely similar in the colouring of their plumage, neither do 
they differ in size. The young are very clamorous, frequently uttering their 
twittering cry as their parents pass and repass the branch on which they are 
sitting.” 
Of Alcyone diemenensis Gould wrote : “ This, the most southern member 
of the genus, differs from A. azurea both in colour and size. It is a native 
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