KINGFISHER 189 



has not been exterminated to gratify the vile taste that prefers a 

 mummy to a living creature. In Ireland it is rare and local as a 

 breeding species, but as an autumn and winter visitor is found 

 throughout the country. It frequents streams and rivers, and the 

 margins of lakes, and, more rarely, the seaside. It is a solitary bird, 

 and, like the dipper, restricts itself to one part of the stream where 

 it gets its food. Day after day it returns to the same perch, where 

 it sits watching the surface, silent and immovable as a heron. It 

 looks out for its prey both when perched and when flying at a height 

 of a few feet above the surface, and often hovers motionless for a 

 few moments before darting down into the water. With the min- 

 now it captures held crossways in the beak it flies to a perch, and, 

 after beating it against the branch or stone, swallows it, head first, 

 sometimes tossing it in the air and catching it as it falls. It also 

 preys on aquatic insects and small crustaceans. The pairing-time 

 is early, and in February or March the birds make choice of a breed- 

 ing place, usually near their fishing-ground, but sometimes at a 

 distance of a mile or more from the water. A hole is dug in a bank 

 to a depth of from one to three or four feet ; but sometimes the 

 birds find a hole suited to their purpose, or a cavity under the roots 

 of a tree growing on an overhanging bank, which they occupy. 

 The hole made by the birds has an upward slope, and ends in a 

 chamber about six inches in diameter. Here is formed the nest, of 

 the strangest material used by any nest-making bird. The king- 

 fisher, like the owl and cuckoo and many other species, casts up 

 the indigestible portions of its food the minute bones of minnows 

 in this case in the form of small pellets. The pellets are thrown 

 up in the nest-chamber, and, when broken up and pressed down by 

 the sitting-bird, are shaped into a cuplike nest. The eggs are six to 

 eight in number, pure white and translucent, and globular in form. 



Probably the kingfisher pairs for life, as the same breeding-hole 

 is used year after year, although the two birds are not seen together 

 out of the breeding season. 



The cry is a shrill but musical piping note, two or three times 

 repeated, somewhat like the sandpiper's cry. 



Two specimens of the belted kingfisher (Ceryle alcyori), an 

 American species, have been obtained in Ireland. 



Three other birds remain to be noticed in this place ; they are 

 members of three distinct families, and are amongst the most beau- 

 tiful of the rare occasional visitors seen in our country : 



