KINGFISHER. 233 



" May Halcyons smooth the waves and calm the seas." 

 W. Browne, as quoted by Mr. Fennell, writes 



" Blow, but gently blow fayre wynde, 



From the forsaken shore, 

 And be as to the Halcyon kinde, 

 Till we have ferried o'er." 



Shakspeare refers to the supposed influence of the King- 

 fisher in the First Part of Henry the Sixth 



" Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days." 



Cowper is perhaps the latest poet who has referred to these 

 fancies in the following couplet 



" As firm as the rock, and as calm as the flood, 

 Where the peace-loving Halcyon deposits her brood." 



But this was not the only power attributed to the King- 

 fisher ; it was also supposed that the dead bird, carefully 

 balanced and suspended by a single thread, would always 

 turn its beak towards that point of the compass from which 

 the wind blew. Storer, in his poem on the life, &c., of 

 Cardinal Wolsey^ says 



" Or as a Halcyon, with her turning breast, 

 Demonstrates wind from wind, and east from west." 



Kent, in Shakspeare's King Lear, speaks of rogues who 



" Turn their Halcyon beaks 



With every gale and vary of their masters." 



After Shakspeare's allusion, Marlowe, in his Jew of Malta, 

 has the lines 



" But how now stands the wind ? 

 Into what corner peers my Halcyon's bill ] " 



And Mrs. Charlotte Smith, in her Natural History of 

 Birds, says, " I have once or twice seen a stuffed bird of 

 this species hung up to the beam of a cottage ceiling, and 



