KING-FISHER, birds of the family Hal cyonidm, of which there are several species in the East Indies. The Tanysiptera nais of Am boyna, the, racquet-tailed king-fisher, is one of the most singular and beautiful of that beautiful family. King-fishers are of the genera Halcyon, Todiramphus, Ceyx, Alcedo, and Ceryle. They are numerous in India, most of them diving in the water for small fishes ; others eating crabs, insects, and reptiles. An instance is mentioned of a king-fisher darting into the Coum river at Madras, and being captured by the valves of the mollusc closing on it. One or two of them hover over the water, questing on the wing till they see their prey ; others sit motionless, watching on a fixed perch. Their bright plumage is their ruin, for it is saleable, and a class of men make their living by capturing them. In solitary places, where no sound breaks the silence except the gurgle of the river as it sweeps round the rocks, the lonely king-fisher, an emblem of vigilance and patience, sits upon an overhanging branch, his turquoise plumage hardly less intense in its lustre than the deep blue of the sky above him ; and so intent is his watch upon the passing fish, that intrusion fails to scare him from his post.
The common king-fisher (Alcedo Bengalensis, Gmel.), the black and white species (Ceryle rudis), and the Indian king-fisher , (Halcyon fuscus, Bodd.), are often to be seen. The first is common in rice-fields, streams, and river banks ; the two latter are not so plentiful ; the Indian king-fisher is a tenant of gardens and pools ; the large black and white king-fisher is the Ceryle guttata. Birds' feathers, from the cranes and king-fishers, form a considerable article of trade in South-Eastern Asia ; the feathers of a large green king-fisher are exported from Madras, one lakh at a time, to Singapore, to be used by the Malays, Javanese, and Chinese. They sell there at 200I er cent. profit.
The nest of a large red king-fisher of Borneo is said to be pendulous, and invariably to. be accompanied in the same mass by_a - bee- which is peculiarly vicious, so that the nest can only be robbed after destroying the bees.—Burbidge's Gardens of the Sun; Tennent's Sket. Nat. If ist. p. 249 ; lVallace's Eastern Archipelago ; Adams.