CHAPTER LV 



THE KINGFISHER 



Quaintest of shape and gayest of colour is the bright 

 kingfisher, who, with his dreamy eye, may be seen perched 

 with grotesque gravity upon some willow branch overhang- 

 ing the white lily beds and sleeping river grasses that stretch 

 away to the distant shores, where the sandpiper is flitting 

 over the shallows. In the bright summertide he dreams and 

 fishes — dreaming like the idle water beneath the burnished 

 gladen. But as hunger sways him, you see him hovering 

 like a gay little jewel or a blue pebble over the pure 

 lilies, until his round e3^e, now no longer dreamy, espies a 

 silvery fish, when he darts down, rippling the still water, 

 and returns to his shaded perch to eat his little captive, head 

 first. A tame little fellow he is, who has been known to 

 alight on the knee of a silent broadsman and fish for water- 

 beetles in the cool green shade of a reed boathouse, until 

 an ejaculation of surprise sent him away shrieking, for he 

 recognised his dread enemy, man. But tame though he 

 be, he is unsociable; and if three or four birds get into 

 a reed-bush together, they will endeavour to drive each 

 other from the whispering car, unless they be pairs ; then 

 one couple will try and drive the other from the interior 

 shade. 



The kingfisher, I think, pairs for life, and indeed gunners 

 seem to know this, for if they shoot one of a pair, they make 

 sure to get the other before leaving — they must hang to- 

 gether. And what matter to them if their bodies do smell 



fishy; those whose educated sense is satisfied by a case of 



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