KINGFISHERS 107 



often seen the bird drop into the water and come out 

 again without apparently having caught anything. It 

 is of course possible that it may have seized some 

 minute water insect and swallowed it at a gulp. Mr. 

 Harper's kingfisher consumed in a whole day the 

 equivalent of twenty-one minnows. That bird was in 

 captivity, and did not take so much exercise as a free 

 bird would ; hence we may double the allowance of 

 the wild kingfisher. If then it catches a fish every 

 time it dives, forty plunges would suflfice to procure 

 it a day's food. 



Every one who has observed the habits of this king- 

 fisher knows that it dives very many more than forty 

 times in the course of the day. It seems to hunt from 

 morning to night. The birds are of course not always 

 on the move. They frequently rest. One or two pied 

 kingfishers are usually to be seen sitting on the telegraph 

 wires which run across the River Cooum parallel with 

 the Mount Road, Madras. 



Kingfishers nest at the end of holes excavated in 

 river banks. During the breeding season, which com- 

 mences in December, numbers of nests, or rather the 

 entrances thereto, may be seen in the banks of the 

 Adyar River. The excavations are six feet or more 

 in length, so that it is impossible to reach a kingfisher's 

 nest without extensive digging. Nor are the passages 

 which lead to the nest straight. But the nest is not 

 much to look at. The white eggs are laid on the bare 

 earth, and are mixed with fish-bones cast up by the 

 birds. 



Kingfishers, like most birds, object to having their 



