342 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
reached, the turns probably being made to avoid stones 
or tough roots; though one! careful observer, whose 
account of this bird is so novel and charming (I will 
read it to you from the scrap-book), thought for a time 
that these turns might be for the purpose of keeping 
light from the nesting-chamber. 
“A hole in a bank seems a strange place in which to 
build a nest, but although one may know it to be the 
home of a Kingfisher, he little imagines the singular 
course of the passage leading to the room at the other 
end, and is hardly aware of the six long weeks of faith- 
ful care bestowed by the parent birds upon their eggs 
and family. 
“Early in April we may hear the Kingfisher’s voice, 
sounding like a policeman’s rattle, as he patrols the 
stream, and we often see him leaving a favourite limb, 
where he has been keeping watch for some innocent 
minnow in the water below. Off he goes in his slaty 
blue coat, shaking his rattle and showing his top-heavy 
crest, his abnormal bill, and pure white collar. 
“The mother bird, as usual with the sex, does most of 
the work at home. The hole is generally located high 
upon the bank, is somewhat less than four inches in 
diameter, and varies from at least five to eight feet in 
length. It slightly ascends to the dark, mysterious 
den at the other end, — dark because the passage gen- 
erally bends once or twice, thereby entirely excluding 
the light. The roof of the passage is vaulted from end 
to end, merging into a domed ceiling almost as shapely 
1 The Kingfishers’ Home Life, W. L. Baily in Bird-Lore. 
