Photo by W. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S.] [Milford-on-Sea.
AUSTRALIAN LAUGHING-KINGFISHER.
The Laughing-kingfisher, or Laughing-jackass, derives its name from its extraordinary note, resembling a demoniacal laugh.
Photo by W. F. Piggott] [Leighton Buzzard.
KINGFISHERS AT HOME.
The plumage of this bird is remarkable for the beauty of its iridescent hues.
Rollers frequent forest country, and travel in pairs or in small companies: some species are entirely insectivorous; others eat also reptiles, frogs, beetles, worms, and grain. Four or five white eggs are laid in a nest made of roots, grass, hair, and feathers, and built in walls, under the eaves of buildings, or in holes of trees or banks.
Equally beautiful as a whole, and far more widely known, are the Kingfishers. But just as the common cuckoo has come to overshadow the rest of its tribe, so the Common Kingfisher eclipses all its congeners. For centuries a wealth of fable, held together by a modicum of fact, served to secure for this bird a peculiar interest; whilst to-day, though shorn of much of the importance with which these fables had invested it, this kingfisher is still esteemed one of the most interesting and beautiful of its tribe.