KINGFISHERS. 69 
morning and evening, but occasionally also during the day. It never seems to 
descend to the ground, and it feeds on fruit.” 
The Kingfishers. 
Family Alcedinidee. 
It is scarcely possible to name a country in the world where kingfishers of 
some sort or another are not found. Although they vary greatly in form and 
the kingfisher (f nat. size). 
habits, as a rule they have a long and somewhat pointed bill; but the shape of this 
organ varies considerably in form, according as the bird is a fish-catcher or a 
devourer of reptiles and other food than fish. The structure of the foot, however, 
scarcely changes throughout the group, for every kingfisher is flat-soled and has 
an anisodactyle foot, with the toes for the most part united together, so that the 
foot of these birds is by no means unlike that of a hornbill, to which group some 
of the laro-er kingfishers make an approach in general appearance. Unlike so 
many of the Picarian birds, most kingfishers have twelve tail-feathers instead of 
ten, though a few possess the ordinary Picarian number. As in the hornbills and 
