BLUE-WINGE D KINGFISHER. 
river (about 1882) no fish fived in it until 1899, when a small species was 
inadvertently brought across to the upper part of it at Williambury Station, 
in water tanks which had been filled on the Lyons River, where fish are 
plentiful. Ml’. Bunbury (owner of Williambury) noted the presence of the 
fish in the tanks, and told the teamster to empty the remaining water into 
the large pool close to his house, and in the following year, 1900, there was 
a great flood which brought numbers of the fish right down the Minilya 
River, and also enabled them to vswim up aU its tributary creeks. 
“ These fine Eongfishers rest quietly in the foliage of trees during the 
heat of the day, but m the early morning, and again in the evening, they 
are very vociferous. One bird seems to start the chorus by a loud ‘ Klock, 
klock,’ and other birds keep joining in the noise, until there is a strange 
medley of ‘ klocks ’ and laugh-like chuckles and chatterings. The owners 
of the many gardens and orchards on the banks of the Gascoyne River 
near Carnarvon look upon these birds as good friends because they destroy 
so many snakes, mice and silver-eyes {Zosterops), the latter small bird being 
generally regarded as a serious pest in W. Australia owing to its habit of 
pierciQg quantities of fruit with its very sharp-pointed beak, but the K ingfishers 
snap and eat at a gulp any small bird that they can get hold of. That the 
small birds look upon them as enemies is proved by the chorus of scoldings that 
follows their flight above the river beds. The breeding-season seems to be 
mostly in August, the jmung birds fledging in September. On August I, 1911, 
I examined a nest contaming four eggs in a cavity of a white gum about 
twenty feet from the ground, on the edge of the Gascoyne. Passing the 
place three days afterwards, I noticed the claw marks and scratchings made 
by the ascent of a large Monitor up the trunk. Climbing up to the nest, 
I found that the eggs had been taken by it. Sept. 9, 1911. — Recently fledged 
young were noted on the Minilya River. Before the young birds leave the 
nest, it and the immediate surroundings become very dirty and evil-smelling 
from excrement and fish remains, hence the aboriginal name of Pookae, for 
the bird, which means stinking.” 
Before dealing with the subspecies, a few general notes on the sexual 
differences which do not appear to have been generally noted. Thus, in 
the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum the adult female is thus 
described : “ Similar to the male in colom’, exceptmg as regards the tail, 
which is cinnamon rufous, barred with dark blue, and white at the ends.” 
This was written after years of study by Dr. Sharpe, but I note that the 
female has the lower back, rump, and upper tad-coverts of a different shade 
of blue to the male, as also the wing-coverts ; the head is differently striped, 
the brown being less in extent ; the female is also larger, with the bill longer 
VOL. VII. 
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