animal would remain helpless like an upturned turtle, because it is unable to reach the ground with its legs when lying on its back. Before the tail is sufficiently developed to be used for that purpose, the young king-crab succeeds in regaining the normal position by flapping its flattened abdominal appendages and rising in the water by that means. The king-crab fishery
Fig. 1.
1. Limulus polyphemus, adult (dorsal aspect).
2. Limulus polyphemus, young (dorsal aspect).
3. Prestwichia rotundata, Coal M., Shropshire.
4. Prestwichia Birtwelli, Coal M., Lancashire.
5. Neolimulus falcatus, U. Silurian, Lanark.
6. Hemiaspis limuloides, L. Ludlow, Leintwardine, Shropshire.
7. Pseudoniscus aculeatus, U. Silurian, Russia.
is an industry of some importance in the United States, and in the East Indies the natives eat the animal and tip their lances and arrows with the caudal spine. They also use the hollow empty shell as a water-ladle or pan—hence the name “pan-fish” or “saucepan-crab” by which the animal is sometimes known. Fossil king-crabs have been recorded from strata of the Tertiary and Secondary epochs, and related but less specialized types of the same order are found in rocks of Palaeozoic age. Of these the most important are Belinurus of the Carboniferous, Protolimulus of the Devonian, and Hemiaspis of the Silurian periods. These ancient forms differ principally from true king-crabs in having the segments of the opisthosoma or hinder half of the body distinctly defined instead of welded into a hexagonal shield. (R. I. P.)
KINGFISHER (Ger.[1] Königsfischer; Walloon Roi-péheux=pêcheur),
the Alceḍo ispida of ornithologists, one of the most
beautiful and well-known of European birds, being found, though
nowhere very abundantly, in every European country, as well as
in North Africa and South-Western Asia as far as Sindh. Its
blue-green back and rich chestnut breast render it conspicuous
as it frequents the streams and ponds whence it procures its food,
by plunging almost perpendicularly into the water, and emerging
a moment after with the prey—whether a small fish, crustacean,
or an aquatic insect—it has captured. In hard frosts it resorts
to the sea-shore, but a severe winter is sure to occasion a great
mortality in the species, for many of its individuals seem unable
to reach the tidal waters where only in such a season they could
obtain sustenance; and to this cause rather than any other is
perhaps to be ascribed its general scarcity. Very early in the
year it prepares its nest, which is at the end of a tunnel bored
by itself in a bank, and therein the six or eight white, glossy,
translucent eggs are laid, sometimes on the bare soil, but often on
the fishbones which, being indigestible, are thrown up in pellets
by the birds; and, in any case, before incubation is completed
these rejectamenta accumulate so as to form a pretty cup-shaped
structure that increases in bulk after the young are hatched,
but, mixed with their fluid excretions and with decaying fishes
brought for their support, soon becomes a dripping fetid mass.
The kingfisher is the subject of a variety of legends and superstitions, both classical and medieval. Of the latter one of the most curious is that having been originally a plain grey bird it acquired its present bright colours by flying towards the sun on its liberation from Noah’s ark, when its upper surface assumed the hue of the sky above it and its lower plumage was scorched by the heat of the setting orb to the tint it now bears.[2] More than this, the kingfisher was supposed to possess many virtues. Its dried body would avert thunderbolts, and if kept in a wardrobe would preserve from moths the woollen stuffs therein laid, or hung by a thread to the ceiling of a chamber would point with its bill to the quarter whence the wind blew. All readers of Ovid (Metam., bk. xi.) know how the faithful but unfortunate Ceyx and Alcyone were changed into kingfishers—birds which bred at the winter solstice, when through the influence of Aeolus, the wind-god and father of the fond wife, all gales were hushed and the sea calmed so that their floating nest might ride uninjured over the waves during the seven proverbial “Halcyon days”; while a variant or further development of the fable assigned to the halcyon itself the power of quelling storms.[3]
The common kingfisher of Europe is the representative of a well-marked family of birds, the Alcedinidae or Halcyonidae of ornithologists, which is considered by most authorities[4] to be closely related to the Bucerotidae (see Hornbill); but the affinity can scarcely be said as yet to be proved. Be that as it may, the present family forms the subject of an important work by Bowdler Sharpe.[5] Herein are described one hundred and twenty-five species, nearly all of them being beautifully figured by Keulemans, and that number may be taken even now as approximately correct; for, while the validity of a few has been denied by some eminent men, nearly as many have since been made known, and it seems likely that two or three more described by older writers may yet be rediscovered. These one hundred and twenty-five species Sharpe groups in nineteen genera, and divides into two sub-families, Alcedininae and Daceloninae,[6] the one containing five and the other fourteen genera. With existing anatomical materials perhaps no better arrangement could have been made, but the method afterwards published by Sundevall (Tentamen, pp. 95, 96) differs from it not inconsiderably. Here, however, it will be convenient to follow Sharpe. Externally, which is almost all we can at present say, kingfishers present a great uniformity of structure. One of their most remarkable features is the feebleness of their feet, and the union (syndactylism) of the third and fourth digits for the greater part of their length; while, as if still
- ↑ But more commonly called Eisvogel, which finds its counterpart in the Anglo-Saxon Isern or Isen.
- ↑ Rolland, Faune populaire de la France, ii. 74.
- ↑ In many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean the prevalent kingfisher is the object of much veneration.
- ↑ Cf. Eyton, Contrib. Ornithology (1850), p. 80; Wallace, Ann. Nat. History, series 2, vol. xviii. pp. 201, 205; and Huxley, Proc. Zool. Society (1867), p. 467.
- ↑ A Monograph of the Alcedinidae or Family of the Kingfishers, by R. B. Sharpe, 4to (London, 1868–1871). Some important anatomical points were briefly noticed by Professor Cunningham (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1870, p. 280).
- ↑ The name of this latter sub-family as constituted by Sharpe would seem to be more correctly Ceycinae—the genus Ceyx, founded in 1801 by Lacépède, being the oldest included in it. The word Dacelo, invented by Leach in 1815, is simply an anagram of Alcedo, and, though of course without any etymological meaning, has been very generally adopted.
