240 The Birds of Virgil. 



Non tepidum ad solem pennas in littore pandunt 

 Dilectae Thetidi alcyones. 1 



That the ' alcyon ' of these two passages is to be 

 identified with our Kingfisher, which is still an 

 Italian bird, and the only one of its kind, I can 

 have no reasonable doubt ; for Pliny's description 

 of the bird is too exact to be mistaken. "It is," 

 he says, " a little larger than a sparrow, of a blue- 

 green colour (colore cyaneo), red in the under 

 parts, having some white feathers close to its 

 neck, and a long thin bill." This description, it 

 is true, is copied almost word for word from Aris- 

 totle, the only exception being the allusion to the 

 white feathers on the side of the neck, which are 

 a well-known feature in the Kingfisher." Whether 

 both were thinking of the same bird it is im- 

 possible to decide ; but that Pliny was describing 



1 Not to the Sun's warmth there upon the shore 

 Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings. Georg. i. 398. 



' 2 This exception is singular, as Pliny seems to depend on 

 Aristotle for everything else which he tells about the bird. I 

 am inclined to think that in this case Pliny must have supple- 

 mented his master's account from his own observation. He 

 had a villa on the bay of Naples, which bay was probably the 

 ' littus ' referred to by Virgil ; and both may here have seen the 

 bird on the shore. 



