STRANGE BED-FELLOWS 



to dig, when suddenly a kingfisher popped out its head 

 and was just preparing to fly away, when I grabbed it. 

 "Aha!" thought I, "here is the mother bird, and I'll 

 have her picture too!" Just then another bird came 

 out of the burrow, almost like a cannon ball, and flew 

 off before I could try to stop it. So the father bird was 

 in there also? Then, to my astonishment out went 

 another, and then another tried it, but this one I caught, 

 putting both into my camera case. A regular eruption 

 of kingfishers was in progress, a miniature Vesuvius 

 in action. Really I cannot tell how many kingfishers 

 came out; I lost count in the excitement; but I think 

 it was eight, possibly only seven. Of course I knew 

 now that this was the brood of young ones, fully grown 

 and fledged, in beautiful plumage. I had caught four; 

 the others flew over to the pond, all but one which 

 alighted on the railroad track. Fearing that a train 

 would come along and kill it, I tried to drive it off, but 

 it kept flying along the rail and alighting on it, and I 

 had to chase it a quarter of a mile before it flew off to 

 one side. 



Here was a pretty quandary. A heavy thunder 

 shower was fast approaching, the wife and baby were 

 there in the woods, but if I left the young kingfishers, 

 it would probably be all up with my kingfisher photo- 

 graphs for this chapter. So I thought I would get a 

 few, any way, and hurried to focus the camera on the 

 entrance to the burrow, after which I put one of the 

 young back into the hole. Immediately it tried to get 



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