134 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



nest, but did not tell him the hour or the sex of the bird. His ac- 

 count of how he accomplished this and finally learned the secret is 

 too long a story to be told here. But he did finally discover "that 

 there is a single nest relief each day, early in the morning. This is 

 comparatively easy to observe, for the bird coming to take its place 

 in the burrow usually flies downstream sounding his powerful, me- 

 tallic Meek Meek at measured intervals, and so heralds his own ar- 

 rival." After three or four false starts he finally gathers courage to 

 enter the burrow ; and, after a minute and a half or two minutes, his 

 mate launches forth and flies off upstream. The times at which the 

 relief took place varied from 7 : 05 to 10 : 01 a. m., most of the shifts 

 being made between seven and nine o'clock. He says, further: 

 "After I learned what precautions were necessary in order to deter- 

 mine the sexes of the birds, I found that on some mornings it was the 

 male who entered and the female who departed, while on other morn- 

 ings the reverse was true. There was a regular alternation, the male 

 entering one morning and the female the next. 



"Each afternoon the incubating partner took a single recess, for 

 food or exercise, from its long 24-hour turn on the eggs. It emerged 

 suddenly and without warning, at some time between 1 and 4 o'clock, 

 flew upstream to the feeding ground, leaving the nest unoccupied, 

 and returned in half an hour to an hour. On returning, it flew 

 downstream low above the water and entered the nest directly, with- 

 out perching or calling, in a manner very different from the morning 

 entry, since there was no mate on the nest to be advised of its arrival. 

 Then it remained until relieved by the mate the following morning. 



"Few birds incubate so continuously as the ringed kingfishers. 

 One day the female took her afternoon recess early, and on returning 

 remained on the nest more than 19 hours, for her mate was very 

 late in relieving her the next morning, and did not appear until 10 

 o'clock. The usual period between their return in the afternoon 

 and their relief the following morning is 16 or 17 hours." 



Mr. Skutch found another nest of this kingfisher "400 feet down- 

 stream in the same bank. I opened it only two days before the eggs 

 hatched. The bird on the nest, with a degree of attachment I have 

 rarely seen equaled, remained bravely in the tunnel while I probed 

 its length, dug in the rear, took out the eggs for measurement, fitted 

 a stone in the aperture I had made, and tamped the soil above it. 

 All this occupied well over an hour. This burrow was 7 feet 9 inches 

 in length and the nesting chamber, 22 inches below the surface, con- 

 tained, like the last, four white eggs. The territories of these two 

 pairs extended in opposite directions from their burrows, the birds 

 from the upper nest always entering it from upstream and returning 

 thither when relieved, those in the lower nest fishing in the river 

 below it." 



