BELTED KINGFISHER. 237 



inunication made to the Annals of Natural History by 

 Wm. Thompson, Esq., of Belfast, the author of the 

 History of the Birds of Ireland as quoted above. One 

 of these birds was shot by F. A. Smith, Esq., at Anns- 

 brook, county of Meath, on the 26th of October, 1845; 

 the second was also shot not long after by the keeper of 

 Mr. Latouche, of Luggela, county of Wicklow. Both 

 specimens were fortunately preserved : one is in the collec- 

 tion of Mr. Warren, of Dublin ; the other was purchased 

 for the museum of Trinity College, Dublin. 



" This Kingfisher, said to be the only species inhabiting 

 North America, is migratory there, and, like other birds 

 which have visited Ireland and Great Britain from that 

 continent, has appeared about the period of migration. 

 As an American bird, it has been fully treated of by 

 Wilson, Richardson, Nuttall, and Audubon. Sir John 

 Richardson states that in summer it frequents all the large 

 rivers in the fur countries up to the 67th degree of lati- 

 tude. It retires to winter in the Southern States and the 

 West India Islands. Audubon remarks that it is ex- 

 tremely hardy, and those individuals which migrate north- 

 ward to breed, seldom return towards the Southern States, 

 where they pass the winter, until absolutely forced to do 

 so by the great severity of the weather. This is, I be- 

 lieve," adds Mr. Thompson, " the first notice of the species 

 being met with on the eastern side of the Atlantic." 



" This wild and grotesque-looking feathered angler," 

 says Nuttall, " is a well-known inhabitant of the borders 

 of fresh waters from Hudson's Bay to the Tropics. His 

 delight is to dwell amidst the most sequestered scenes of 

 uncultivated nature, by the borders of running rivulets, 

 the roar of the waterfall, or amidst the mountain stream- 

 lets which abound with the small fish and insects consti- 

 tuting his accustomed fare. Mill-dams, and the shelving 



