KINGFISHER. 



211 



beak towards that point of the compass from which the wind 

 blew. Storcr, in his poem on the life, &c. of Cardinal 

 Wolsey, says — 



" Or as a Halcyon, with her turning brest, 



Demonstrates wind from wind, and east from west." 



Kent, in Shakspeare's King Lear, speaks of rogues who 

 " turn their Halcyon beaks 



With every gale and vary of their masters." 



After Shakspeare's allusion, Marlowe, in his Jew of Malta, 

 has the lines — 



" But how now stands the wind ? 

 Into what corner peers my Halcyon's bill?" 



And Mrs. Charlotte Smith, in her Natural History of Birds, 

 says, " I have once or twice seen a stuffed bird of this species 

 hung up to the beam of a cottage ceiling, and imagined that 

 the beauty of the feathers had recommended it to this sad 

 pre-eminence, till, on inquiry, I was assured that it served 

 the purpose of a weather vane ; and though sheltered from 

 the immediate influence of the wind, never failed to show 

 every change by turning its beak to the quarter whence the 

 wind blew." 



The Kingfisher is generally distributed over Great Britain, 

 but is not so numerous in Scotland as it appears to be in 

 Ireland. Miiller includes it among the birds of Denmark, 

 but considers it rare : it does not appear to be found in 

 Sweden or Norway, nor in the more northern parts of Scan- 

 dinavia. Pennant says it inhabits the temperate parts of 

 Russia and Siberia. It is found in Germany, Holland, 

 France, Spain, Provence, Italy, and the Morea. Mr. Hugh 

 Strickland says it is common in Smyrna ; the Zoological 

 Society have received specimens from Trebizond, and it in- 

 habits the country between the Black and the Caspian seas. 

 In Africa this species is found as far south as Senegal. 



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