37 



when placed on the ground and peck your finger. I 

 could carry them about the house and they would 

 make no attempt to fly away, and on pointing my 

 finger at them, and talking to them when not hungry, 

 the'y would look up with their bold brilliant eyes, 

 seize my fingers in play, and utter their " Zip, zip ; " 

 but if a stranger came and looked at them they 

 immediately shouted their wild alarm, " Chee, chee, 

 chee," and beat themselves about. When I talked 

 to them they had a way of bobbing their heads up and 

 down, and from side to side. 



It was a very troublesome job, the rearing of the 

 young Kingfishers, though it afforded me a splendid 

 opportunity for studying them ; but I shall never 

 undertake it again, and in conclusion I am of the 

 opinion that it is utterly impossible to make, in 

 the proper sense, a cage bird of the Kingfisher. But 

 those who have a fancy for keeping them could manage 

 it in an aviary, with plenty of room, and an artificial 

 pond of running water plentifully supplied with live 

 fish. They would not do long with stagnant water, 

 and it is impossible to keep them long on dead fish, 

 such as we get at the fishmongers. They will not 

 survive long, for I only kept the ones we had for about 

 two months ; they dropped off one after another, 

 much to my sorrow% as they were so tame. 



I repeat that I consider the decision to exclude 

 the Kingfisher from the cage bird list a very righteous 

 one. 



