. Birds. Birds. ALOHDO. 123 blue, each of the lesser and median coverts tipped with a bright blue spot; quills brown, edged outside with greenish blue; tail blue above, brown beneath; lower parts deep ferruginous, sometimes paler, always whitish or white on chin and throat. Some birds are a greener blue than others. Toung birds are duller in colour and have the lower parts tinged with ashy. Bill black; basal half of lower mandible in females red or orange; iris dusky brown; feet coral-red {Sharpe). Length about 7; tail 1'4; wing 2-75 to 3'1; tarsus •37; bill from gape 1' Head of A. ispida,
. Birds. Birds. ALOHDO. 123 blue, each of the lesser and median coverts tipped with a bright blue spot; quills brown, edged outside with greenish blue; tail blue above, brown beneath; lower parts deep ferruginous, sometimes paler, always whitish or white on chin and throat. Some birds are a greener blue than others. Toung birds are duller in colour and have the lower parts tinged with ashy. Bill black; basal half of lower mandible in females red or orange; iris dusky brown; feet coral-red {Sharpe). Length about 7; tail 1'4; wing 2-75 to 3'1; tarsus •37; bill from gape 1' Head of A. ispida, f. In accordance with the latest views of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, who has made a special study of Ejngfishers, I have united the Indian Kingfisher with the European and Central Asiatic bird. The former has long been distinguished as A. hengalensis, on account of its small size; but unquestionably the two pass into each other, and the difference in size is probably due to a very common peculiarity that tropical races (or perhaps southern races) in Asia are smaller than those of temperate regions. Distribution. Throughout Europe and Asia, extending to the Malay Archipelago. In the British Indian area, this bird is only wanting in the Himalayas, where it is rarely met with far above the base of the mountains, though it abounds in Kashmir. It is of course most common in well-watered countries and comparatively rare in forest-tracts. The smaller race A. hengalensis occurs throughout South-eastern Asia; the larger, typical A. ispida only occurs within Indian Umits in Sind and Baluchistan, but inter- mediate forms are common. Habits, 6fc. The Common Kingfisher frequents streams of all sizes, marshes, tanks, irrigation-channels, road-side ditches, fiooded paddy-fields, and even the sea-shore, anywhere, in fact, where small fish may be found, and perclies on a tree or stump, and very often on a reed, or any post of vantage overlooking the water; from its perch it plunges after its prey. I
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