THE KINGFISHER. 
(Alcedo ispida , L.) 
||F not the most graceful, the Kingfisher is undoubtedly the 
most gorgeously coloured of British birds. It belongs 
to a large family, chiefly natives of Asia and Africa, all 
more or less celebrated for their beautiful plumage. The 
chief characteristics of these consist in a long, straight, 
quadrangular-pointed bill, legs with short tarsi (shanks), 
feet with three toes in front and one behind, those in 
front curiously united to each other, the middle toe to the 
external one up to the third joint and to the internal one 
up to the first. At first sight this seems a rudimentary 
and awkward foot, unsuited for most ordinary purposes. 
But Mr. Swainson has well pointed out that it is exactly 
suited to the economy of the bird, which never perches 
save upon small slender branches, and does not require to 
walk upon the ground. The same ornithologist connects 
the Kingfisher with the bee-eaters, and contrasts the 
latter, together with the goat-suckers and swallows, which possess powerful wings 
for long 0 and sustained flight, with the Kingfisher, whose habits are entirely 
different. All the members of this family “are sedentary, watching for their 
food from a fixed station, which they only quit as soon as their prey approaches 
o 
