CHAPTEE XXIV. 



FEEDING HABITS OF KINGFISHERS. 



IN the volume by Mr. Darwin on the " Expression of 

 the Emotions," it is stated, on page 48, that " kingfishers, 

 when they catch a fish, always beat it until it is killed." 

 When I read this statement, I felt quite sure that it did 

 not apply to our common belted kingfisher ; and, in a 

 brief communication to "Nature" (vol. vii, p. 362), I 

 took occasion to say that I had never seen a kingfisher 

 take its food otherwise than by swallowing it whole, and 

 that while he was yet upon the wing. The captured fish 

 having been swallowed, or, at least, having disappeared, 

 the kingfisher will then alight upon the branch of a tree, 

 and, stretching out its neck, go through a gulping motion, 

 as if the fish had not been entirely swallowed, but had 

 been retained in the oesophagus. Up to the time when 

 I made this note (January, 1873), I certainly had never 

 once seen a fish taken from the water and killed before 

 being devoured, and I was under the impression that, in 

 feeding, the kingfisher, after darting into the water and 

 securing a small minnow, emerged from the stream, 

 uttering its shrill, harsh, chattering cry, as if rejoicing 

 over the delicate morsel it had captured, and not scolding 

 at its ill-luck, as has been thought. That this is so is 

 evident, because I have shot these birds as they rose from 

 the water, and on dissection have sometimes found in 

 their stomachs or oesophagus an entire fish in which life 



