24 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



One mode of capturing these birds, as practised in many 

 places, is extremely cruel. A number of small spring-traps 

 are set on narrow boards crossing the stream, on the hatches, 

 and on old boughs hanging over the river, on which king- 

 fishers often perch, and when settling on these the trap is 

 sprung, and catches the poor birds across the legs, break- 

 ing and tearing them. There they remain, may be for 

 many hours, till the river-keeper visits his traps. It often 

 happens that the trap cuts the legs clean off, and the poor 

 maimed bird flies away to die a lingering and terrible 

 death by starvation. 



In the Highlands of Scotland, where the proprietors or 

 the tenants prevent the destruction of the golden eagle or 

 the peregrine falcon, the grouse on these moors are found 

 to be just as plentiful, and much more healthy, as on those 

 where the birds of prey are ruthlessly exterminated. In 

 the same way, the kingfishers cannot hurt a trout-river. 

 Nothing is more detrimental than overstocking it breeds 

 disease in the grouse on the moor, and lanky, unhealthy 

 fish in the river. 



The kingfisher has a most interesting mythological 

 history. Aristotle, who died 320 B.C., writes of its powers 

 of calming the winds when sitting on its eggs in the sea- 

 girt nest. Look into Ovid or Lempriere, and read how 

 Alcyone, daughter of QEolus, married Ceyx, who, unfor- 

 tunately, was drowned in a great storm ; and when Alcyone 

 found his dead bod}' on the shore, she threw herself into 

 the sea, and was changed, together with her husband, into 

 kingfishers, with the permission to keep the waters calm 

 and serene for the space of seven to fourteen days whilst 

 they built their nest on the surface of the ocean. Hence 

 " calm " days and " halcyon " days are synonymous terms : 



" There came the halcyon, whom the sea obeys, 

 When she her nest upon the water lays." 



Thus wrote Drayton, and thus the poets write up to the 

 present time. Keats says : 



" O magic sleep ; O comfortable bird 

 That broodest o'er the troubled sea of wind 

 Till it is hush'd and smooth." 



