THE SWIFTS, WOODPECKERS, ETC. 199 



keepers as a very intelligent and often high-minded class 

 of men, instead of assuming them to be bloodthirsty ogres, 

 their diatribes against cruelty to the children of nature 

 might bear more fruit than it can be said to do at present. 

 The keepers are in possession, that is certain ; and it is for 

 the advocates of the furred and feathered delinquents to 

 make of those in possession allies and not enemies. 



To return to the kingfisher, the cause of this unpardon- 

 able digression. Fairly common, as already said, in this 

 country, it is scarce in the north of Scotland, and, though 

 resident in many counties, but a straggler to some 

 parts of Ireland. It is, however, a bird of such rapid 

 flight and such retiring habits, as to be comparatively 

 unknown in many districts where it is in reality not 

 scarce. The wings beat rapidly like those of the star- 

 ling. Indeed, the dense foliage of the river -bank con- 

 ceals it from our gaze during the warmer weather when 

 we are most likely to pass near its haunts; and from 

 the fact of the kingfisher being for this reason so much 

 more in evidence during the winter months, they call it 

 "Ice bird" ^ n Mecklenburg tmB "Ice-bird." It must 

 not, however, be forgotten that it is by no 

 means a hardy winter-bird, for numbers are found dead 

 in the Thames valley every hard winter. A greater 

 recluse, save perhaps the owls, does not exist among 

 birds ; and it is observed to beat its own particular 

 stretch, where no other appears to intrude. It is, how- 

 ever, undeniable that, in spite of an occasional meal, 

 for want of better, of water-insects and molluscs, small 

 fish, preferably troutlets, form its principal food. The 

 kingfisher also feeds on the foreshore near estuaries, and 

 there is generally one throughout the summer perched of 

 early mornings on the west works of the Arun estuary 

 at Littlehampton. Its nest, which takes remarkable forms 

 in poetry -books, is in reality no more than some hole, 

 bored or borrowed, in the bank, or in some wall near the 

 water. Here, at the end of an up -sloping tunnel some 



