120 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The kingfisher must of necessity do its fishing in clear water, so is 

 seldom seen on muddy streams or ponds, or on those that are choked 

 or overgrown with thick vegetation, such as is often found along 

 trout streams. It usually perches on some stake, snag, or pier stand- 

 ing in the water, or on some bare overhanging branch, where it can 

 watch patiently for some passing fish. Favorite perches of this sort 

 in good fishing spots are resorted to regularly and rival kingfishers 

 are driven away, for the kingfisher is a solitary bird except during 

 the nesting season or while training its young. From such a perch 

 the bird may dive obliquely into the water to seize the fish in its 

 poAverf ul bill ; or, rising 30 or 40 feet into the air and scanning the 

 water below it in more active pursuit of its prey, it may stop and 

 hover for a few seconds, with rapidly vibrating wings, and then make 

 a straight or spiral dive directly downward, disappearing beneath 

 the water sometimes for several seconds. It is not always successful 

 in its plunges, as the fish may move and cause a sudden change of 

 direction in the bird's rapid dive either above or below the surface; 

 but it is not easily discouraged and is always ready to trj^ again. 

 Having secured the fish, it flies with it to some favorite perch, where 

 it beats the fish into insensibility, tosses it into the air, or otherwise 

 adjusts it, so that it can swallow it head first and thus avoid any 

 injury to its throat from the sharp spiny fins. Sometimes the fish is 

 too large to be swallowed completely, in which case the tail must be 

 left protruding from the mouth until the rapid process of digestion 

 enables the bird to gradually work it down. Manly Hardy wrote 

 to Major Bendire (1895) of such a case, and says: "I shot a King- 

 fisher last spring that had swallowed a pickerel considerably longer 

 than the bird from the end of the bill to the tip of the tail, and the 

 tail of the fish protruding from the throat, while the head was partly 

 doubled back, causing a large protuberance near the vent." 



Where fish are not readily obtainable, especially in the arid regions 

 of the Southwest where the streams largely disappear during the 

 dry season, the kingfisher seems able to make a good living on various 

 other kinds of food. The list includes crabs, crayfishes, mussels, liz- 

 ards, frogs, toads, small snakes, turtles, grasshoppers, locusts, 

 crickets, salamanders, newts, butterflies, moths, beetles and other in- 

 sects, young birds, mice, and even berries. On the seacoast, it has 

 been known to feed on clams and oysters, which sometimes results 

 disastrously for the bird. H. C. Hopkins (1892) reports finding a 

 kingfisher with "its bill held fast between the shells of an oyster." 

 The bird had evidently inserted its bill into the open shell of the 

 oyster, which had closed upon it; "the tongue [was] quite black from 

 non-circulation of the blood, which showed that it must have been 

 held prisoner for some time." The bird would probably have 



