54 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



standing in the water his colors shade off into 

 the greenish wash of the stream, and you rarely 

 see him, no matter how near him you may be, 

 before he springs into the air, and is away. I 

 once shot a fine specimen as it flew past me, 

 and it fell among some stones at a brook's 

 edge. Something attracted my eyes from the 

 spot where it fell, and when I turned again to 

 look for my bird I could not see it. I walked 

 round and round. I knew it had fallen quite 

 dead ; but what had become of it ? In fact it 

 lay there in plain view under my eyes ; but its 

 colors were so uniform with those of the 

 smooth, water-washed stones, amongst which 

 it had fallen, that I was full five minutes dis- 

 covering it. Every sportsman has experienced 

 similar difficulty in looking for snipe and wood- 

 cock after bringing them down. 



The kingfisher's colors are, no doubt, of 

 great advantage to him in taking his prey from 

 the water. If he were red, instead of being 

 dashed over with all the blue and purple and 

 silver-gray, and liquid shadows of the brook 

 itself, he would not catch many fish. How 

 hard it must be for the minnows, as they dis- 

 port in the dancing current, to see, through the 

 trembling medium, the sky-blue and silvery 

 markings of the bird sitting on a swaying 

 branch between them and the sky ! And how 

 easy it would be for the kingfisher to get all 

 the food he might desire if those little fish were 

 less of the color of the water in which they 

 swim. If quails were scarlet instead of mottled 

 brown, how soon the hawks would exterminate 

 them ! 



But there is another side to this subject of 

 which the poet and artist must take careful 



