DACELO LEACHII, Vig. and Horsf. 
Leach’s Kingsfisher. 
Dacelo Leachii, Lath. MSS. Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 205, 
Specimens of this fine Kingsfisher are contained in the British Museum, the Linnean Society, and my own 
collections, all of which were procured on the north-east coast of Australia, where it evidently replaces the 
Dacelo gigantea of New South Wales and South Australia. 
The specimen in the Linnean Society’s museum was presented by Dr. Brown, who procured it in Keppe 
Bay on the east coast; and it was subsequently seen at Shoalwater Bay and Broad Sound on the same 
coast; my own specimens were obtained at Cape York, the north-eastern extremity of Australia. 
The habits, actions, food, and indeed the whole of the economy, are so precisely like those of the Dace/o 
gigantea that a separate description of them is entirely unnecessary. 
The male has the head and back of the neck striated with brown and white ; sides of the neck and under 
surface white, crossed with very narrow irregular markings of brown, these markings becoming much 
broader and conspicuous on the under surface of the shoulder; back brownish black; wing-coverts and 
rump shining azure-blue ; wings deep blue; primaries white at the base, black on their inner webs and 
blue on the outer ; tail rich deep blue, all but the two centre feathers irregularly barred near the extremity 
and largely tipped with white ; upper mandible brownish black, under mandible pale buff; irides dark 
brown ; feet olive. 
The female differs but little from the male in the colouring of the plumage, except that the tail-feathers, 
instead of being of a rich blue barred and tipped with white, are of a light chestnut-brown conspicuously 
barred with bluish black. 
The Plate represents the two sexes about the natural size. 
