258 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



shores, the few that remain with us being often found 

 starved to death. 



The Kingfisher is tolerably common in most parts 

 of Europe with which we have any personal acquaint- 

 ance, but in some of them appears to be only recog- 

 nized as a winter visitor, and we were assured, in 

 1883, as an extraordinary fact, that a nest of the 

 " Ice-bird," as this species is pretty generally called 

 by the peasantry of North Germany, had been found 

 on the banks of the Ahr, in Rhenish Prussia, where 

 we often observed the Kingfisher during our visits to 

 Neuenahr in the months of May and June. This 

 bird is not uncommon during the winter months in 

 Andalucia. My friend Lieut.-Colonel L. H. Irby 

 says, in his ' Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar,' 

 1875, "I have no record of its occurrence during the 

 breeding-season, that is, not later than the end of 

 April; the majority arrive in October, leaving in 

 March." But we have latterly received information 

 from an officer of the garrison of Gibraltar that King- 

 fishers breed near Gibraltar now pretty freely, and 

 that two nests had been found in that neighbourhood 

 during the summer of 1883. We have frequently 

 reared young Kingfishers from the nest, and found 

 that in a large cage with a plentiful supply of small 

 live fishes they may be kept in good health for a 

 considerable time, but although they may, as we say 

 in falconry, be "trained off" to feed upon worms and 

 raw meat by placing this food in their water-pan, 

 they never thrive long upon any other than a fish 

 diet. In common with most piscivorous birds, the 

 digestion of the Kingfisher is a very rapid process, 

 and its appetite consequently voracious ; this of 

 course renders it very difficult to keep their place of 



