United States Exploring Expedition 1838-1842
The naturalists compared one of the birds that they observed in the Fiji Islands to the kingfisher, but described how the habits of this species differed: "…these birds do not capture fishes at all, nor do they show address and courage in plunging into the water like nearly all the birds of this family, but subsist mainly on the lower orders of animals, reptiles, crustacea, and insects. Some species…live exclusively in the forest, without even showing any considerable partiality for the vicinity of water."	Todiramphus Vitiensis (Fiji Islands) [Pair of Kingfishers] from John Cassin's United States Exploring Expedition. During the Years 1838-1842. Under the Command of Charles Wilkes… Mammalogy and Ornithology. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1858.
Peale observed the bird "over a greater part of the Feejee Group of islands. It is solitary in its habits, frequents the mangroves which skirt the inner verge of the coral belts, and is most commonly found near the salt water, where fish and crabs abounding, would lead us to suppose that such were its food, but we never saw it capture anything but insects; fragments of grasshoppers were the ordinary contents of the stomachs of those we dissected."
Wilkes: Page 5 of 6.	back   next