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Lev. Mu/.
D escription. T EN GTH ten inches. Bill thick at the bafe, two inches and
a half in length, and of a red colour : the general colour o f
the upper parts of the body is black, mixed with ferruginous :
the feathers of the head longilh : the quills and tail are blue
green, with the inner webs and lhafts dark-coloured: the throat and
Pla c e .
breaft are white; on the laft fome o f the feathers are tinged with
pale green : the belly ferruginous brown : legs red.
Inhabits the South Sea, but what part uncertain.
16.
+. COMMON
K.
Alcedo ifpida, Lin. Syjt. i. p. 179. N° 3.
- ■ ■ ■ --------- > Scop an. i. p. 35. N° 64.— Muller, p. 13.
Le Martin-pefcheur, Bri/. orn. iv. p. 471. N° 1.
Le Martin-pecheur, ou L’Alcyon, Buf. oif. vii. p. 164.
Le Martin-pecheur, PI. enl. 77.
Ifpida, Raii Syn. p. 48. N° A. I.
Kingfifher, Will. orn. p. 146. t. 24.— Alb. i. pi. 54.
— ■ ..... *2?r. Zool. i. p. 246. pi. 38.
Br. Mu/. Lev. Mu/.
'D escription. '"p 'H IS is the moft beautiful of all the Britijh birds : the length
is feven inches, the breadth eleven inches, and the weight
one ounce and a quarter. The bill is near two inches long, and
black; but the bafe of the lower mandible is yellow ; the irides
red : the top of the head, and fides, and wing coverts, are of a dark
green, marked with tranfverle ipots o f a brighter and very lucid
blue 1
Mue ; the green changing in fome lights to deep blue ; the tail is
alfc o f a deep blue : but the middle of the back and tail coverts
are wholly of the bright azure : at the bafe of the upper mandible
is ah orange fpot, at the upper corner of which is a fmall patch
o f white, and under that a black mark : behind the eye is a broad
-ftripe of a rufous orange-colour, palling a little way on each fide
the neck, and beneath this, a patch of white; the chin is white»
with a tinge of rufous : and the reft of the under parts of the body
rufous orange : the legs'are red.
This bird is found not only in England, but throughout Europe,
Afta, and Africa ; as fpecimens, precisely the fame with ours, have
been received from both China, Bengal *, and Egypt ; Belon f alfo
remarks his having met with it in Romania and Greece -, and Sco-
P°H-t notices it as a bird of (darniola, where he fays it remains
the whole year, as in England ; and indeed it bears the rigour of
the colder climates fo well, that among the Germans it has gained
the name of Eifzvogel, or Ice Bird § : Olina {peaks alio of its not
regarding the ice and cold || ; and Gmelin allures us, that it is found
even in Eart ary and Siberia ** : but, however this may be, there
are few' winters in which many of thefe birds do not perilh, I
make no doubt, from cold merely ; as, to my knowledge, feveral
have been found frozen {tiff, by the fides of even running water, '
without the leaft mark o f violence about them.
M . D'Aubenton has kept thefe birds for feveral months, by
means of fmall filh put into bafons of water, on which they have
fed ; for, on experiment, they have refufed all other kinds of
nourilhment.
f i. p. 11. i 220. J A . i .p .55, %Gefmr
*®.p.55i. II Uatl. p. 35. au Siler, ii. p.112.
4 L 2
Place and
Manners.
The