Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/60

Rh The beak in this genus is very straight, sharp, compressed through its whole length, with the gape ample; the upper mandible is not at all bent at the point. The wings are somewhat rounded, the third quill being the longest. The tail is very short, scarcely reaching beyond its coverts. The feet are very weak; the outer and middle toes united; the inner and back toes very short.

The true Kingfishers, as their name implies, are aquatic in their habits, resorting to the banks of rivers, or to the sea-shore, where they watch for the rise of small fishes to the surface. On these they dart with the rapidity of a stone flung into the water, and rarely fail to emerge with the prey secured in the strong and sharp beak. They breed in holes in cliffs, which they themselves excavate; though sometimes they are said to appropriate a hole already formed. The plumage is blue or green, often varied on the under parts with red or chestnut.

The common Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida, .) is well known, particularly in the southern part of our island, wherever there is a secluded and shaded stream. It is, as Sir William Jardine observes, "one of our most gaily tinted birds, and when darting down some wooded stream, and shone upon at times by the sunbeams, it may give some faint idea of the brilliant plumage that sports in the forests of the tropics, and that flits from place to place like so many lights in their deeply shaded recesses." The plumage of the