ACTENOIDES HOMBRONI.

Hombron’s Kingfisher.

Actenoides hombroni, Bp. Consp. i. p. 157 (1850).—Reichb. Handb. Alced. p. 36, t. ccccxxii. fig. 3147 (1851).
Bp. Consp. Volucr. Anis. p. 9 (1854).—Walden, Tr. Z. S. ix. p. 155 (1875).

- variegata, Hombr. & Jacq. Voyage Péle Sud, Zool. iii. p. 101 (1853).

Halcyon hombrom, Gray, Hand-l. B. i. p. 93 (1869).—Sharpe, Monogr. Alced. p. 221, pl. 84.

 

 

I wave the greatest satisfaction in presenting my readers with a figure of this beautiful Kingfisher, inas-
much as it is evident from the plate of the bird given in Mr. Sharpe’s ‘Monograph’ that he was unacquainted
with the adult plumage. We learn from his book that personally he had never seen an example of the
species, but had procured a drawing of the original type from M. Huet, and had reproduced it in his ‘ Mo-
nograph.’ Independently of this mode of procedure being somewhat unsatisfactory, the original
specimen appears to me to be immature; and hence I believe that I am now giving for the first time a figure
of the full-plumaged bird. For the opportunity of doing this I am indebted to Professor Steere, who shot
the specimen in the island of Mindanao. I am also indebted to Mr. Bowdler Sharpe for the following de-
scription of it, taken from his paper on Dr. Steere’s birds in the ‘Transactions’ of the Linnean Society :—

“Adult male. Head and nape bright blue, more brilliant on the sides of the head, over the eye, and on the
nape; round the latter a narrow line of deep black ; ear-coverts tawny chestnut ; along the lower line of
the lores a streak of black feathers reaching below the eye and widening behind the latter, being here
shaded with blue ; cheeks bright blue, forming a broad band; sides of neck and hinder part of the latter
deep tawny, varied with narrow black edgings to the feathers ; mantle blackish, mottled with tawny spots,
these being subterminal, with a narrow black fringe ; middle of back, and scapulars and wing-coverts, green
with a slight shade of verditer, each feather having a distinct subterminal spot of ochraceous buff; quills
blackish, externally washed with greenish, the primaries edged with ochraceous, the secondaries with the
same subterminal spot of ochre as on the wing-coverts ; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts bright
silvery cobalt, the sides of the back and the lateral coverts blackish washed with blue; tail-feathers deep
blue with black shafts; throat white slightly washed with tawny; rest of under surface deep tawny,
whiter on the centre of the abdomen, the breast-feathers with narrow, nearly obsolete, blackish margins ;
thighs externally blackish, internally deep tawny; feathers at sides of vent, adjoining sides of lower back,
deep blue, the outer web more or less ochraceous ;_ under wing-coverts and axillaries deep tawny; the quills
blackish below, edged with pale tawny buff along the inner web; bill coral-red, the culmen black (in skin);
iris hazel.

“ Total length 11°3 inches ; culmen 2:0, wing 4°99, tail 4°15, tarsus 0°75.”

The bird is represented, in the accompanying Plate, of the size of life.