322 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



had ample space to display their natural habits. If a 

 deep basin of water, filled with live minnows, was 

 placed on the floor, they would dart down from their 

 perches one after the other, and with almost unerring 

 aim, secure a victim, which was generally held near 

 to the tail until killed by sundry smart blows against 

 the woodwork ; then tossed up with a httle jerk and 

 swallowed head downwards. Their voracity was some- 

 thing extraordinary, devouring meat as well as fish, and 

 occasionally one, having bolted his own minnow, would 

 seize hold of that in the beak of his neighbour, when the 

 struggle for mastery was highly amiising, " pull devil, 

 pull baker," they alternately dragged one another along 

 the narrow perch, and usually ended in halving the fish in 

 their violent efforts to gain sole possession. 



There is no doubt that our native birds receive in 

 some seasons, if not every autumn, additions to their 

 numbers from more northern localities. Messrs. Shep- 

 pard and Whitear describe this species as apparently 

 ^' subject to a partial migration, as it comes up the 

 river Gripping, in Suffolk, every autumn. In the autumn 

 of 1818, kingfishers abounded along the shores and 

 creeks of the Stour, though not one was to be seen 

 in the summer. At the latter end of the last year 

 none were to be found in the same place." Mr. W. R. 

 Fisher, also, writing from Yarmouth in 1844 (Zoologist, 

 p. 766), says, — " I have for some time suspected, from 

 the number of kingfishers which are annually killed 

 here towards the end of August and begmning of 

 September ; that a migration of these birds takes place 

 about this time. The fact of a kingfisher having lately 

 dashed against a floating light placed about twenty 

 miles at sea, off Winterton (the Lemon), seems to con- 

 firm this supposition. It seems probable that they come 

 from the more northern parts of Europe, where the 

 waters are frozen in winter, but I have not hitherto 



