BELTED KINGFISHER.— Crrj/Jc A'lcyon. 



meteor-lLke flight over the country, it will suddenly check itself in mid career, hovering 

 over the spot for a short time, watching the finny inhabitants of tlie brook as they swim to 

 and fro, and then with a curious spiral kind of plunge will dart into the water, driving up 

 the spray in every direction, and after a brief struggle will emerge with a small fish in its 

 mouth, which it bears to some convenient resting-place, and after battering its prey with 

 a few hearty thumps against a stump or a stone, swallows it, and returns for another 

 victim. Waterfalls, rapids, or " lashers" are the favoured haunts of the Belted Kingfisher, 

 whose piercing eye is able to discern the prey even through the turmoil of dirty water, 

 and whose unerring aim fails not to seize and secure the unsu.specting victims, in spite of 

 their active fins and slippery scale-covered bodies. 



" Rapid streams," says Wilson, " with high perpendicular banks, particularlj^ if they 

 be of a hard, clayey, or sandy mixture, are also the favourite places of resort for this bird, 

 not only because in such places the small fish are more exposed to view, but because those 

 steep and dry banks are the chosen situation of his nest." 



In these banks the Belted Kingfisher digs a tunnel, which often extends to the length 



