44 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



close to the face of the . clay bluff into which 

 it means to project its adit. There is a fine 

 suggestion of blended royalty and democratic 

 self-dependence in the apparition of this 

 splendid creature turning itself into a richly 

 jeweled tunnelling-machine or drifting appa- 

 ratus, hurling itself beak foremost into the 

 earth. 



Day by day the digging goes on, the male 

 and female both laboring, I am led to believe, 

 until the mine is completed, a mine, by the 

 way, admirably constructed for self -drainage, 

 but scarcely ventilated at all ; a grimy, dark, 

 filthy den at best, and often unspeakably 

 loathsome. No wonder Alcyon laughs as 

 soon as he emerges from such a cavern into 

 the sweet light and air of a May morning ! 

 No wonder, either, that the laugh has in it a 

 strong touch of reptilian indifference to vocal 

 harmony! Here is the best instance, speak- 

 ing without any reference to comparative an- 

 atomy, of a bird still attached to the lower 

 life of its archetype, the life of a burrowing, 

 grovelling, repellant amphibian, but enjoying 

 also, to the full, the broad liberty, the sweet 

 luxury, the inexpressible delight of avian 

 pursuits by flood and field. 



Wliat would our noisy mill-streams and 

 bass-rivulets be without Ceryle Alcyonf As 

 for me, I should find a prime aesthetic value 

 gone from angling, were the kingfisher with- 

 drawn from brookside nature. His laugh 

 may come in now and then just in time to 

 taunt one over a piscatorial disaster, and 

 hence be very ire-provoking, but, as a rule, I 

 have found it a rather refreshing giggle of 

 delight over the landing of an unusually 

 game fish. 



" Pid-d-d d-d-d ! " sang out Ceryle Alcyon 



