EASTERN BELTED KINGFISHER 117 



Henry R. Carey (1909) writes: 



The food brought to tlse uest-hole consists of various Iduds of small tish. It 

 not infreq\ient!y happens that one of tliese fish is too large to be carried by the 

 parent bird into the narrow passage; it is then dropped upon the sand and is 

 allowed to rot. * * * i once found a common salt-water flounder, four and 

 one-half inches long and proportionately wide, which, being rather unwieldy 

 for the parent bird to handle, had been left in this way. Another time I found 

 a young Sculpin (Callionymus aeneus) in the same condition, and, yet again, a 

 live minnow, which, in spite of a great patch on its side devoid of scales, was 

 finally freed in perfect health. * * * 



The young birds leave the earth about July 25 [in New Hampshire]. They 

 are a sombre-looking lot, as for several days they sit tamely about the wharfs 

 or venture on short, erratic flights, which makes one feel that they have not 

 yet got used to the light after their long imprisonment underground. It is at 

 this time that both parents and young, somewhat crowded in the vicinity of 

 the home nest by their sudden increase in population, begin to seek out new 

 fishing-stubs, or to use old ones for the first time in the year. When the young 

 are able to care for themselves, the old birds leave them and lead once more 

 the single life which they seem to enjoy most. 



At this time of year, frequent quarrels occur among them, mostly about the 

 best fishing spots, and now that strange, whining note, which Herrick de- 

 scribes as resembling the grating of two tree boughs in the wind, is often 

 heard. It appears to be a note of anger ; I have heard it when one bird, 

 wanting the perch of another, hovered menacingly over him. Once I saw two 

 birds dive simultaneously for the same spot in the water, the same note es- 

 caping them as each reliTctantly swerved aside. 



Floyd Bralliar (1922) writes interestingly of how the young learn 

 to catch their own fish : 



The young birds did not remain in the neighborhood of the nest more than 

 a few days, but those few days were busy ones, for in that brief time the 

 mother was teaching her children bow to earn a living. She would perch by 

 their side on an overhanging limb and patiently wait for the glimmer of a fish 

 below. The first day or two she usually caught the fish, beat it into partial 

 insensibility and then dropped it again into the water. The young were per- 

 sistent in their plea for food, but the mother was as insistent that they catch 

 their living if they got any. There was very little current where they hunted, 

 and a fish did not float out of sight quickly. The young birds would crane 

 their necks and look hungrily at the fish below until finally one more hungry 

 or more bold than the rest would make a dive for it. At first the aim was 

 not good, and the bird would miss even a dead fish more often than he succeeded 

 in catching it. Usually, however, he fluttered about the surface of the water 

 until he got his fish, even tho he had missed it when he made his plunge. 

 * * * During the first few days when the young birds became too hungry, 

 the mother would occasionally relent and feed them, but before the week was 

 over, no matter how hungry they became, no food was coming imtil they caught 

 it. Within ten days the young birds were catching live fish instead of half 

 dead ones. 



Then a young bird would catch his fish, carry it to his perch, whack it over 

 the limb a few times, toss it in the air, catch it by the head as it came down 

 and swallow it with as much skill as his mother. As soon as she was convinced 

 of the skill of each of her brood, she forsook them entirely. I do not know 

 whether she ultimately drove them from the neighborhood or whether they 



