76 
PICARIAN BIRDS. 
chiefly on fish and water insects, with an occasional shrimp or fresh-water prawn. 
Its cry is a shrill, piping note, not unlike that of the common kingfisher, but shriller 
and less powerful, and not apparently uttered except on the wing. It has a very 
powerful flight, and is capable of great speed, darting along the stream like a ruby 
meteor. Even when the bird is not disturbed, but is merely moving from place 
to place, its flight is very swift. When it feeds, it returns again and again to the 
same perch, and keeps to a confined area, being found day after day about the same 
LAUGHING KINGFISHER (§ nat. Size). 
spot, from which it seldom flies more than a mile. Mr. Baker has watched the 
birds making their tunnel into a sandy bank, and believes that the earth is pecked 
away by the bird’s bill and the sand ejected by a backward motion of its feet. 
Laughing- Inhabitants of Australia and the Papuan Islands, these birds are 
Kingfishers. best known by the laughing kingfisher (Dacelo gigantea), or laughing- 
jackass, as it is termed by the Australian settlers, which is a large bird, measuring 
17 inches in total length, with a wing of 81, and a tail of 6| inches. The general 
colour is brown, with the lower back greenish blue; the median wing-coverts 
