THE NEST OF THE KINGFISHER, {ALGEDO ISPIDA.) 



BY ^^r-YCIDAS." 



It appears to me somewhat strange, that in this age when everything is 

 well nigh reduced to a fact, and craving curiosity pries into every work of 

 natm'e — too often for some utilitarian end — that our tropical-coloured little 

 Halcyon — ill fated — because so beautiful, should still succeed is mystifying the 

 intruder on her haunts, and leave something yet for the mind to speculate upon. 



I see in vol. i., page 22 of your periodical, that a very agreeable corres- 

 pondent expresses a doubt as to the construction of the Kingfisher's nest, and 

 again at page 57, I find it stated by another contributor, that this bird 

 does not construct its nest of ejected fish bones, but lays its eggs on the bare 

 soil the first year of its occupation of the hole, but in the second and following 

 years incubates on the castings of the young of the first year. It is neither 

 my wish or intention to enter into any polemical discussion, but I would simply 

 desire to give you the result of a very slight and superficial observation. In 

 an evil hour, under the influence of some cruel demon, who reigns supreme 

 over egg collectors, I have sacrilegiously pillaged the nest of this, the most 

 'besung' of all birds, and have ever found the eggs placed on a small quantity 

 of minute fish-bones at the extremity of the hole. 



It is still fresh in my mind, as a great epoch in my life, the thrilling 

 excitement I felt, when as a truant school-boy, I first marked the Kingfisher 

 to her hole. Great were the demonstrations of friendship shewn me by many 

 of my school-fellows, following the same pursuit as myself* many were the 

 offers to assist me in taking the nest, but I kept my own councils, for I 

 calculated on another prize the next season, as I knew well that the birds 

 would construct their nest again at no great distance from their old hole. 

 Well, this proved to be the case, for the same pair of birds worked their 

 hole the next year within a few feet of their old nest, and I again robbed 

 them, and still found the eggs placed on fish bones, differing only from the 

 nest of the former year, inasmuch as there was perhaps a smaller quantity 

 of fish bones, and the hole was free from excrement, whereas I found the nest 

 of the first year exceedingly offensive, arising from the large quantity of the 

 foeces of the young, the same hole having doubtlessly descended through several 

 generations as a patrimony in the family. In after years, long since the time 

 I have just alluded to, I blush to say that I again robbed a Kingfisher's nest; 

 and again in the following spring I found the neic nest containing fish bones, 

 as in the case I have before alluded to. 



In making the foregoing observations, I would not wish to be understood 

 as impugning in the remotest degree the statements, or denying the accuracy 

 of the research of your correspondents, — mine may be the exception, theirs 

 the rule. 



It has often been my fortune to watch this little bird for hours beside the 

 rippling stream, '"'where the dark trout leaps/' the beauty of its plumage, and 



