CLYTOCEYX REX, Sharpe. 
Spoon-billed Kingfisher. 
Clytoceijx rex, Sharpe, Ann. Nat.. Hist. (5th ser.) vi. p. 231 (1880). 
The remarkable bird which is figured in the accompanying plate is a native of South-eastern New 
Guinea, where it was obtained by Mr. Charles Hunstein, who has been collecting in the interior about 
Milne Bay, East Cape, and the neighbouring localities. Having already in the course of the present work 
had occasion to express some disappointment that the southern portion of the great Papuan island had 
not produced the number of new species which one might reasonably have expected, I feet bound to 
qualify this opinion when I see before me such an extraordinary form of bird as the present. It is evident 
that the avifauna of the lowlands has too much resemblance to that of the adjoining continent of 
Australia and to that of the Aru Islands for us to expect, until the mountains are reached, any thing 
strikingly different from the birds of these two localities. 
In the MS. list of birds sent by Mr. Hunstein he speaks of this species as the “ Spoon-billed ” Kingfisher ; 
and I have adopted this English name, not so much on account of its absolute correctness from an 
ornithological point of view, but because it represents the first impression of the original collector. To 
ornithologists the epithet of “ spoon-bill ” recalls the flattened and spatulated bill of the orthodox Spoonbill 
( Platalea ), or that of the spoon-billed Sandpiper ( Eurhinorhynchits ) ; but the beak of this large Kingfisher 
more resembles the bowls of two spoons placed in opposition to each other. 
We have as yet no details as to the habits of the present species ; but they doubtless resemble those of 
the large “ Jackasses ” of Australia. The bills of the specimens sent were covered with dried earth, as 
if the birds had been grubbing for food on the ground. Although the species is, no doubt, generically 
distinct from the Laughing Jackasses of Australia, there can be no doubt that in the genus Dacelo it will 
find its nearest allies. Different as the bill is, there is one character which betrays this affinity ; and that 
is seen in the difference of the sexes, the male having a blue tail, and the female a rufous one ; this, 
as is well known, is one of the leading features in a true Dacelo . 
I translate the original description given by Mr. Bowdler Sharpe. 
Male. Head brown ; feathers surrounding the eye and sides of' the face brown ; car-coverts black, 
extending backwards onto the sides of the neck and forming a broad band ; a stripe above the eye, the 
lower cheeks and a broad band on the neck ochraceous buff ; interscapulary region black ; scapulars and 
wing-coverts brown, the latter margined with ochraceous, the outermost of the least series washed with 
greenish blue; primary-coverts and quills dark brown, externally washed with dull green; lower back 
and rump silvery cobalt ; upper tail-coverts and tail dark brown washed with green ; throat white ; rest 
of the body underneath, with the under wing-coverts, ochraceous buff; quills dusky below, with the inner 
web margined with pale ochraceous. Total length 12 inches, culmen T95, wing 6-35, tail 4‘7, tarsus 09. 
Female (immature). Differs from the male in its reddish tail. The hind neck and the undersurface 
having dusky margins to the feathers, show that the bird is not quite adult. 
The figures in the Plate are drawn from the pair in the British Museum. 
