THE KINGFISHER. 171 
variably returns uninjured, and prepares to take 
another dip. 
There are people who imagine that the brilliancy 
of the plumage of birds has some connection with a 
tropical sun. Here, however, in our own native 
bird, we have an instance that the glowing sun of 
the tropics is not required to produce a splendid 
plumage. The hottest parts of Asia and of Africa 
do not present us with an azure more rich and lovely 
than that which adorns the back of this charming 
little bird; while throughout the whole of America, 
from Hudson’s Bay to Tierra del Fuego, there has 
not been discovered a kingfisher with colours half 
so rich or beautiful. Asia, Africa, and America 
offer to the naturalist a vast abundance of different 
species of the kingfisher. Europe presents only 
one; but that one is like a gem of the finest lustre. 
I feel sorry to add that our kingfisher is becoming 
scarcer every year in this part of Yorkshire. The 
proprietors of museums are always anxious to add 
it to their collections, and offer a tempting price 
for it. On the canals, too, it undergoes a continual 
persecution: not a waterman steers his boat along 
them, but who has his gun ready to procure the 
kingfisher. If I may judge from the disappearance 
of the kite, the raven, and the buzzard from this 
part of the country, I should say that the day is at 
no great distance when the kingfisher will be seen 
no more in this neighbourhood, where once it was 
so plentiful and its appearance so grateful to every 
lover of animated nature. Where, in fine, its sin- 
