THE ESTUARY 143 



arrest its progress, hover again, then drop again, like 

 a spider descending from a beam, finally darting into 

 the water from a height of only about a couple of yards, 

 when it would frequently come up with a fish. No 

 doubt this manoeuvre meant that the prey was shifting 

 its position in the water and the bird wanted to make 

 sure of its aim. There seemed to be something wrong 

 about the fishery rights of these Kingfishers, because 

 if one of their number succeeded in catching a fish 

 when the others were within sight, they would often 

 give chase to the successful bird with loud cries of 

 pitwee, pitwee, until one of them caught him and 

 took the fish from him, when he in his turn would be 

 chased and made to yield up his ill-gotten spoils. They 

 would waste a lot of time in this way, when each bird 

 might have been fishing on his own account to much 

 better advantage. When they were tired of this pro- 

 ceeding they used to sit in a row along the shore of 

 the estuary in attitudes very unkingfisher-like. I think 

 they were the most difficult birds that I ever had to deal 

 with photographically ; they appeared to be able to see 

 through any ordinary bush ; perhaps their powers of 

 vision had been increased by constantly looking for fish 

 beneath the surface of the water. 



After a little while it became easy to tell what these 

 Kingfishers were doing, without the aid of the eye ; a 

 sharp pit, pit in the distance, as they followed the 

 curve of the river, a pause, as they failed to put in an 

 appearance and were hovering over the stream, then 

 the echoing smack as the bird hit the water, followed 

 very quickly by a hollow knock as the unfortunate 

 victim was despatched upon a rock or stump. 



