BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 223 



Family ALCEDINID^. 



CERYLE ALCYON (L.). (390.) 



BELTED KINGFISHER. 



This quaint fisherman is an early migrant, reaching Minne 

 sota about the first of April. In some springs it has come on 

 the 5th of March, (1883), then the 26th, once on the 29th, then 

 on the 15th of April, &c. Its autumnal disappearance is quite 

 as irregular; in one season going as late as Nov. 3d, in another, 

 Dec. 5th, and so on, but usually going about the last of October. 



They mate soon after their arrival, and are soon engaged in 

 excavating a hole in the bank of a stream or lake, to the depth 

 of about six feet, where they often make a square angle, and 

 carry it a foot or two farther. There they enlarge it somewhat, 

 and build in the extremity a nest composed of grasses, leaves 

 and feathers. 



This hole and nest is also used as a resting place at night, 

 after the young are matured. It is a little remarkable that a 

 family reared so associated together, can become completely 

 disorganized as soon as the young are fully developed, yet it is 

 a patent fact that by the first of September, all relations are 

 dissolved, and each individual henceforth fishes alone. 



Nowhere that my investigations have been extended, has 

 this curious crank of the bird kingdom, been found absent from 

 his chosen haunts at the season of his summer visitations. 



In the proper place I should have said that they lay six pure 

 white, nearly spherical eggs, which require sixteen days for 

 incubation. 



Their clamatorial rattle, is too familiar to everybody to re- 

 quire notice. Like many another good fisherman, "poor 

 Alcie" is often compelled to retire on a light supply of fish 

 diet, but it does not take him as long to dry out and get warm 

 as it does the others. If the small fry are running lively, his 

 stone-like drop from an overhanging limb, is a pretty certain 

 antecedent to a rise with a minnow, crosswise in his bill; but 

 when he is compelled to wait fifteen, twenty and thirty minutes 

 for a single one to put in an appearance, he is not very certain 

 of his game. I have seen them strike half a dozen times before 

 securing one. His history would need a volume to half tell it. 



