BLACK AND WHITE KINGFISHER 53 



only hovering over the Sacred Lake at Karnak, 

 but also plunging head foremost down into its 

 waters, and securing some food or other, with 

 which it has at once flown away to some con- 

 venient perch and there swallowed it. Now there 

 are no fish in the Karnak Lake, and it is clear 

 that what the Kingfisher goes for must be some 

 variety of its ordinary fishy food, and must be some 

 larvsB or fine fat water -beetle. When hanging 

 thus in mid -air it reminds me a little of our 

 own Windhover or Kestrel, in its quick clapping 

 stroke of wings, whilst its body and tail hang 

 nearly perpendicularly down, till it sees what 

 it wants ; then the position of its body alters in 

 a flash, and down it plunges, and is lost for a 

 moment in the splash and spray that it raises by 

 the impact with the water. 



