repair to tropical quarters, reaching the isthmus of Panama,
most of the Antilles and Trinidad, where according to
Leotaud it is resident, and the same is said of it in some
other West Indian islands ; * but in those which have been
the home for any length of time of a competent ornithologist
it is declared to be migratory. It is a winter visitant to
Bermuda, arriving, says Wedderburn, in September and
disappearing in April. In Newfoundland, where says Mr.
Keeks (Zool. s.s. p. 1692) it is tolerably common, it is,
owing to the rigour of the climate, only a summer visitor.
The points in which this bird chiefly differs from the
Kingfisher of this country may be briefly stated as follows.
It haunts more rapid and turbulent streams, besides shewing
at times a more decided preference for a maritime life, so
as to be seen actively fishing half-a-mile out at sea. When
frequenting the shore, crustaceans seem to form a considerable
part of its food, and these are not the small and low
forms on which our own bird preys, but some of the highest,
as crabs (Ibis, 1859, p. 67).t Its powerful build enables it to
swallow many fishes, especially the smaller malacopterygians,
without killing them first, though acanthopterygians, and
tough, hard-scaled fishes of any group are beaten against the
bird’s perch till they are dead, and if large their more digestible
parts are alone swallowed.]: It does not generally plunge
* Th u s Mr. Ober (Proc. U .S . N a t. Mus. 1 8 7 8 , pp. 6 2 , 1 9 3 and 2 7 2 ) sa y s of
i t in D om in ica , S t. V in c en t’s an d G r en a d a ; w h ile S un d ev a ll ((E lv e r s. K. V e t.
A k. Forhandl. 1 8 6 9 , p. 5 8 5 ) a sse r ts th a t i t is fou nd th rou gh ou t th e year in
S t. B a rtholomew’s. Both th e s e au th o r itie s seem to h a v e r e lied chie fly on in fo r m
a tion fu rn ish ed to th em , w hich w a s p robably erroneous.
+ B u t on fittin g op po r tun ity a crab w ill r e ta lia te , for Wedderburn saw one
seiz e a B e lted Kingfisher, h e had sh o t, w h ile stru g g lin g in th e water, and drag it
b en ea th th e surface.
+ Mr. C. 0 . A b b o tt (N a tur e, v ii. p. 3 6 2 , x i. p. 2 2 7 ) h a v in g h ad considerable
exp er ien ce of th is bird’s h abits, when ca tch ing a lm o st ex c lu siv e ly small cyprinoids
— so ft-finned fishes, d en ied th e a sse rtion o ften mad e o f it s b ea tin g it s prey to
d e a th b efore ea tin g it . B e in g induced, however, by th e ev id en c e of a credible
w itn e s s to th in k th e r e m igh t be ground fo r th e estab lish ed b e lie f, h e con tin u ed
h is ob se rvations in o ther p la ce s w he re th e bird was fe ed in g u pon larger fishes,
which he found to be b utche red by i t in th e manner a lready sta ted . Mr. Gosse
(B. Jama ica , p. 8 2 ) records a sin gu la r in stan c e o f two bird s se iz in g th e same fish
s im u lta n e o u sly and tu g g in g a t i t t il l th e grasp o f one g a v e way.
perpendicularly into the water after its prey, but with a
circular or spiral sweep. Dr. Coues (Bull. Nuttall Orn.
Club, 1878, p. 92) records an observation by a correspondent
of a Belted Kingfisher which, when the water was too rough
to admit of its fishing, greedily devoured the berries of the
sour-gum (.Kyssa aquatica), ejecting in pellets their seeds
and skin. It has a loud, harsh cry, syllabled by Mr. Grosse
churr, not at all unlike a noise that may be made by a
watchman’s rattle*, and usually uttered sitting, or when
disturbed. Like our own Kingfisher this bird breeds very
early in the season, and much in the same manner. A
hole is burrowed in a bank, and the nest is at the end of a
gallery—never apparently less than two feet in length and
sometimes as much as fifteen—which often turns at a sharp
angle, and is sometimes said to be tortuous. Occasionally
it would seem to be furnished with twigs, grass and feathers,
though most commonly without anything more than fishes’
bones and scales, j- The eggs are said to he six or seven in
number, of a pure, shining, translucent white, by no means
always so spherical as is asserted, and measure from 1*37
to 1’25 by from l -04 to 1’02 in.
The bill is bluish-black, with the lower mandible lighter
at the base: irides hazel: head and cheeks dark bluish-
grey with a white spot just before and another under the
eye; sides of the neck helow and behind the crest white;
back and wing-coverts bluish-grey, most of the latter tipped
with white ; remiges black—the primaries with the basal
half of the inner web, and some irregular spots on the outer,
white; the secondaries and tertials with the outer web
bluish-grey, speckled and tipped with white; upper tail-
coverts bluish-grey, with whitish specks ; middle rectrices
bluish-grey, but black near the shaft and with irregular white
mottling across them, the rest greyish-black with interrupted
white hars and bordered externally with bluish-grey; lower
* H enc e, according to Dr. Gundlach (Ana les de la Soc. Esp. de H ist. Nat.
1 8 7 8 , p. 2 1 9 ), one o f it s n ames in Porto Rico is Matraca— a wooden ra ttle .
f The n id ifica tion o f th is bird h as been th e su b je c t o f m uch d iscussion (Am.
N a t. i. p. 4 9 6 ; ii. p p. 2 1 8 , 3 7 9 , 4 0 3 , 4 9 0 , 6 1 4 ; iii. pp. 4 8 , 6 1 5 ) d ue to som ew
h a t h a sty gen era liza tion o f it s v a ry ing modes.
VOL. I I. 3 N