122 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1918) writes: "Early in August, 1917, 

 Mr. John Hair, gamekeeper of Mr. E. T. Crane at Ipswich, missed 

 six of a four days old brood of Bob-whites. He had seen a King- 

 fisher nearby and later the same day saw it perched on the gable end 

 of the little house where the Bob-whites had been hatched, and from 

 there pounce on the young birds as they ran in and out. He shot the 

 Kingfisher, and, on opening the bird, a female, found the legs and 

 feathers of the young Bob-whites in its crop." 



When hard pressed for animal food the kingfisher has been known 

 to eat wild cherries and probably other wild fruits. Dr. Elliott 

 Coues (1878) published the following note from Mrs. Mary Treat 

 about a kingfisher that fished regularly from a private wharf in 

 front of her house in Florida: "When the water is so rough that 

 it is difficult for him to procure fish, instead of seeking some seques- 

 tered pool he remains at his usual post, occasionally making an 

 ineffectual effort to secure his customary prey, until, nearly starved, 

 he resorts to a sour-gum tree {Nyssa aquatica^ L.) in the vicinity, 

 and greedily devours the berries. Returning to his post, he soon 

 ejects a pellet of the large seeds and skins of the fruit." 



Behavior. — The belted kingfisher is a striking and picturesque 

 feature in the landscape whether in action or at rest. The mountain 

 trout stream would lose much of its charm without the rattling call 

 of the lone fisherman and the flash of his broad, blue wings, as he 

 follows the course of the stream, flying well below the treetops until 

 he glides upward to alight on his accustomed perch, there to tilt his 

 short tail nervously up and down and raise and lower his long crest 

 a few times, as he sounds his battle cry again. At the seashore, too, 

 his trim, unique figure and his conspicuous color pattern, as he 

 perches day after day on his favorite stake or goes rattling along 

 the shore, add color and a tinge of wildness to the scene. 



The flight of the kingfisher is strong, swift, and graceful, usually 

 low, but high above the treetops when traveling ; often there are five 

 or six rapid strokes followed by a long glide on half-closed wings. 

 Mr. Carey (1909) writes of it: 



The Kingfisher's flight is remarkable for its beauty. How easily those long 

 wings carry him about, as he skims so close over the water that their tips are 

 sometimes wetted, or, as he hovers, his body appearing absolutely motionless, 

 in that wonderful way which few birds can equal, for indefinite periods of 

 time. Sometimes, especilally in water half a foot or less in depth, he dives 

 while fiying nearly parallel to its surface. Sometimes, in his journeys from 

 perch to perch when fish are plentiful, he dips again and again into the water 

 in this way, reminding one of the Swallow as he gracefully touches the water 

 here and there in his flight over the mill-pond. Again, he drops like a falling 

 stone in a nearly perpendicular line upon his fishy prey. 



Again he writes, referring to times of keen competition over good 

 fishing grounds : 



