68 



Bird Notes and News 



Oil on the Waters 



THE TRAGEDY OF CERYLE 



[The following paper is contributed to the 

 Egyptian Gazette (1922) by a corres- 

 pondent who may be here identified 

 as Mr. R. E. Moreau, the Society's 

 Hon. Secretary in Egypt.] 



No one who has ever been in Egypt can 

 have failed to notice the black and white 

 Kingfisher. Everywhere there is water 

 he is to be found, and everywhere he goes 

 he is the life and soul of the place. Summer 

 and winter, on the broad stream of the 

 Nile, on the innumerable canals, on the 

 expanse of the flood-waters, on the merest 

 drains and pools in the fields, he plies his 

 trade with a light heart. There is none 

 of the sombre and aloof intentness of the 

 great soaring birds, none of the skulking 

 of so many of the Warblers. He lives 

 his life before every man's eyes with an 

 immense vitality and a splendid careless- 

 ness of their regard. 



In shape, in nesting-habits, and in diet, 

 he closely resembles our own familiar 

 blue-green and russet bird at home. He 

 is indeed more sociable. If one is found 

 fishing, two or three more are frequently 

 within call, and sometimes several 

 nesting-holes can be found close 

 together in a scarp of sand or mud over- 

 looking the water. Greater differences 

 are in flight and voice, which in each 

 species seem specially designed to har- 

 monise with one another. It is impossible 

 to imagine their voices transposed. What 

 could suit the unerring arrow-like velocity 

 of blue-backed Alcedo so well as his 

 high-pitched squeak, uninflected — no more 

 than a needle of sound ? Ceryle, the pied, 

 flies quite differently. He obviously has 

 to work hard for every moment he is in 

 the air. There is nothing of the Humming- 

 bird about him, no mysterious blur of 

 wings. Quite appropriately his voice is at 

 once ragged and vigorous, a loud rattling 

 twitter. When two or three are gathered 

 together in play or in anger, the noise of 

 their ringing chatter is wonderful to hear. 



His methods of fishing are two. He 

 does sit on a perch like any other unenter- 

 prising Kingfisher and wait for his prey 

 to swim beneath him. But here in Egypt 

 boughs and railings over the water are 

 comparatively rare. So what does he 

 do but make a point of vantage for himself 

 in mid-air. He hovers. It is a remark- 

 able piece of business. The Kestrel seems 

 to achieve it by virtue of the wide expanse 

 of his tail, which, fully outspread, acts as 

 a drag both against his tendency to glide 

 forward and downward by his own 

 weight and against such forward drive as 

 there is in the carefully regulated 'wing- 

 beats. But Ceryle possesses nothing like 

 such a tail. It seems to me that in his 

 case his whole body must act as the 

 necessary stabiliser, for it hangs at a 

 steep angle in the air, while his head and 

 long black bill are bent sharplj^^ down- 

 wards in scrutinjT^ of the water below. 

 It looks hard work. There is none of the 

 neat and easy flicker of the Kestrel. 

 Working on the hinge of the neck the 

 whole body shakes with the vigour of the 

 effort. Yet not a tremor seems to move 

 the head. It is as motionless as if it 

 were held fixed in space by an invisible 

 hand. And so, by some means known 

 only to himself, he gains the requisite 

 steadiness of view, x'^gain and again 

 he may change his position in the air, 

 letting himself slip suddenly from his 

 old coign and bringing up to a new point 

 in a graceful-rising curve. Fish sighted, 

 he turns heels over head instantaneously 

 and dives with a splash. 



I did not know how much I thought of 

 Ceryle till one of them died a day or two 

 ago in my hands. Indeed, he made me 

 feel that he ought to have an obituary 

 that should be partly an appreciation and 

 partly a protest, albeit despairing, against 

 his miserable death and its cause. It 

 would really have been difficult for the 

 most patient investigation to discover a 

 more effective means for the painful 

 elimination of water-birds. The dregs of 

 an oil-boat, the cleanings of an oil-fueler. 



