48 BIRDS OF THE WATER 



how for hours a single unwinking Oycloj^can 

 eye would glare at their front door, how 

 the four nestlings were taken out of their 

 troglodytic home and placed in a row 

 before the magic optic, how the strongest 

 youngster, resenting the uncanny rite, flew 

 fully thirty yards on his first flight, fell 

 into the lake, and was rescued by a boat, 

 how on two occasions their nesting hole 

 was blocked at dusk, and other stories so 

 much stranger than truth as to be in- 

 dubitably false. 



With a reverence for science — almost a 

 passion it might be said for the screen and 

 raingauge — it is sad to have to relate the 

 Kingfisher's neglect of the elementary 

 duties and decencies of life. Tlie birds 

 know neither how to keep a cleanly house 

 or rear a mannerly family; in fact, the 

 schoolboy's condensation of some work on 

 savage life — manners none and customs 

 beastly — would be strictly apposite to their 

 housekeeping. The nest swarms ^vith gentles, 

 and from it there emanates a really noisome 

 stench, the young sometimes sitting amongst 



