Halcyon smyrnensis

Halcyon smyrnensis, Lin.

129. :- Halcyon fuscus, Bodd. :- Jerdon's Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 224 ; Butler, Guzerat; Stray Feathers, Vol. III, p. 456 ; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 382 ; Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 110; Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India; Ibis, 1885, p. 61.

THE WHITE-BREASTED KINGFISHER.

Length, 10.5 to 11.5; expanse, 14.25 to 16.5; wing, 4.5 to 5; tail, 3.2 to 3.7 ; tarsus, 0.6 ; bill at front, 2.25 ; bill at gape, 27 to 3.

Bill rich coral-red, dusky at tip; irides brown ; feet vermilion-red.

Head: face, sides of neck and body, abdomen, and under tail-coverts,deep rich brown-chesnut ; scapulars and tertiaries dul greenish-blue ; back, ramp and upper tail-coverts bright coerulean blue; wings, with the lesser-coverts, chesnut, median-coverts black, and the greater-coverts and winglet dull blue ; quills blue, with a broad black tip diminishing to the last primary ; and the inner webs of all dusky black, with a broad oblique white bar on the inner webs of the primaries, extending over nearly the whole feather in the last primary, small in extent on the first; chin, throat, middle of the back, breast and abdomen pure white; tail blue, the centre feathers slightly tinged with greenish.

The White-breasted Kingfisher is generally distributed throughout the district ; it is a permanent resident and breeds from March to the commencement of July and even later it pierces a hole in the bank of a river, or side of a well or tank; there is no nest, and the eggs, five or six in number, are nearly spherical in shape, pure white in color, highly glossy when freshly laid, but becoming discolored and dull as incubation proceeds.

They measure 1.12 inches in length by 1.03 in breadth.