ALCEDO IPSIDA. 



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but shallower and friable by being chiefly composed of bones. 

 Although a simple matter, there is nothing authors more 

 disagree about than the nest of the kingfisher. While some say 

 it is entirely composed of dry grass, roots, and feathers, others 

 (Montagu for instance) say it is entirely composed of fish bones, 

 mixed with earth — these bones being " the castings of the 

 parent birds, and not of the young, for he found them before 

 they had eggs, and he believed both went to that spot for no 

 other purpose than to eject this matter for some time before the 

 female begins to lay, and that they dry it by the heat of their 

 bodies, as they are known to continue in the hole for hours 

 long before they have eggs." But, like the martins, they 

 probably breed in the hole. " On this disgorged mass," he says, 

 " the eggs are laid. At first the hole is not fouled, but before 

 the young ny it becomes fetid by the foeces of the brood, which 

 is very watery and cannot be carried away by the old ones like 

 most small birds ; hence instinct has taught them to slope the 

 hole up, so that the matter runs off, and may be seen on the 

 outside." He " never saw the old birds with anything in their 

 bills when they went in to feed their young, so he concludes 

 they eject their stomach for that purpose." Mr Eennie, how- 

 ever, in his edition of Montagu's "Dictionary, says : — " We have 

 known one of these nests in the same hole for several summers, 

 but, so far from the excuviae of fish bones ejected being dried 

 to form the nest, they are scattered about the hole from its 

 entrance to its termination without the least order or working 

 up with the earth, and all moist or fetid. That the eggs may 

 be laid upon portion of these bones is probable, as the floor of 

 the hole is so thickly strewed with them that no vacant spot is 

 found, but they assuredly are not by design built up into a nest." 

 So here we have two totally different statements. And as to 

 never " seeing them with anything in their bills when they 

 went to feed their young," a writer in the Naturalist says, that 

 in June he " saw a kingfisher with a fish in its mouth flying 

 near him until it entered a hole in the bank, the entrance to 

 which was strewed with fish bones. On digging into the hole 

 (which ran upwards, slanting for about 2 feet) he found a nest 

 with seven young ones just hatched. The bottom of the nest 

 was very thick, and mixed with small bones of the stickleback. 

 Its structure (except the bones) was not unlike that of a mavis. 

 It crumbled to pieces on being touched, so that no portion 

 could be got worth preserving. Near the nest was another 

 hole, having the appearance of the previous year's residence, 



