26 J. E. LITTLEBOT — THE BIRDS OF OUE DISTRICT. 



that we have a goodly number of these beautiful birds at Hunton 

 Bridge, and I can assure you that they are always objects of 

 interest. They are fond of sitting on the wire fence that borders 

 the river, and from this elevation they watch assiduously for their 

 prey. Presently there is a splash ; the king-of-fishers has plunged 

 bodily under the water, and up he comes with a small dace or 

 minnow in his beak ; he returns at once to his perch, raps the fish 

 against the iron wire until it is dead, and then proceeds to swallow 

 it entire, head foremost. A few weeks since I noticed two king- 

 fishers, one at either end of a river punt that happened to be 

 moored exactly opposite to my office window. Of course I watched 

 them. They appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation, but 

 after a short time, the bird that I assumed to be the cock sidled 

 along the whole length of the punt until he reached his mate, 

 when he immediately proceeded to feed her in the most affectionate 

 manner. The kingfisher, in common with the owl and some other 

 birds, possesses the singular power, after digesting the fieshy 

 portions of its \dctims, of disgorging the small bones in the form 

 of pellets. We find quantities of these pellets near its favourite 

 resorts, and I have a few of them with me which I shall be pleased 

 to exhibit. The rapid flight of these birds is very noticeable; they 

 flash past you in a moment, their brilliant colour gleaming in the 

 sunshine, and probably affording some slight idea of the gorgeous 

 beauty of tropical birds. Two years ago a pair of kingfishers that 

 frequented the garden were evidently on the look-out for a locality 

 in which to build. For nearly a fortnight they constantly resorted 

 to a hole in an old ash stump, close to the water. We thought 

 that their choice had been made, and carefully avoided disturbing 

 them. Suddenly they altogether deserted the old ash stump, 

 and appeared to look with favour on a certain rat's hole, about 

 fifty yards higher up the stream. This they quickly abandoned, 

 and eventually selected a bank in quite another poi-tion of the 

 garden. At Hitchin, kingfishers regularly build in a secluded dell 

 from which gravel has been taken. The dell is 300 to 400 yards 

 distant from the stream from which they obtain their food, and about 

 40 or 50 feet above its level. The ground beneath the holes that 

 they frequent is strewn with the spines of sticklebacks, and oc- 

 casionally the head of a miller's-thumb is to be found. Close to 

 the nests of the kingfishers is a fox's hole, and it is perhaps a little 

 curious that a carnivorous animal and fish-eating bird should dwell 

 in such close proximity. 



Swallows, martins, and swifts are next upon my list. The 

 swallow and the sand martin generally arrive about the same time. 

 Last spring I noticed the first swallow on the 7th of April. The 

 house martin and the swift are somewhat later in arriving. The 

 swallow may fairly be taken as the type of migratory birds, and 

 is there anything more wonderful in the whole range of natural 

 history than that extraordinary instinct which teaches the swallow 

 and other birds to wing their way, before the approach of winter, 

 with unerring certainty, over land and trackless sea, to warmer and 



