KINGFISHER. 



207 



The well-known Kingfisher is one of the most beautiful of 

 our British birds, and will bear a comparison with many of 

 those which are brought from climates considered more fa- 

 vourable to the production of brilliant colours. It is also 

 generally distributed, though it can scarcely be said to be 

 very numerous anywhere. It frequents the banks of streams 

 of various sizes, whether rivers or brooks, sometimes inhabit- 

 ing the vicinity of fish-ponds ; and the bird is most frequently 

 seen when flying rapidly along near the surface of the water. 

 Its food consists of water-beetles, leeches, minnows, stickle- 

 backs, and probably any other species of small fish which it 

 can seize upon by surprise. For this purpose the King- 

 fisher takes a station near the water, sitting on the branch of 

 a bush or tree overhanging the stream, or on a rail by the 

 water side, from whence it darts instantaneously upon any 

 passing prey, and will occasionally suspend itself on the wing, 

 hovering and watching for a favourable opportunity to make 

 the plunge which is to secure its victim. The prey is always 

 taken with the beak ; and so unerring is the aim, that the 

 bird seldom fails to gain the fish it strikes at, which when 

 thus captured is brought to the usual waiting-place, and after 

 some mutilation to produce death, is invariably swallowed 

 head foremost. 



The Kingfisher is solitary in its habits, and pugnacious in 

 disposition, seldom to be seen with any associate except its 

 mate during the breeding-season. At this period a pair take 

 possession of a hole already formed by some burrowing ani- 

 mal, in the bank by the water side, and often but little ele- 

 vated above the surface of the stream ; sometimes the King- 

 fisher will take to a cavity among the exposed roots of an 

 ao-ed tree on the river bank ; they have been known to take 

 possession of a hole in a bank frequented by Sand Martins at 

 a distance from water ; and Mr. Jesse relates in his Gleanings 

 that in the summer of 1834, one of the workmen employed 



