2 $6 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



I was assured by my guide that a kingfisher had 

 several times been seen by himself, and the other 

 labourers quietly occupying a nest that was pointed 

 out to me in the thatch close to the Ridge-pole. I 

 soon climbed up to the spot, and found a simple cavity 

 lined apparently with moss, but containing no eggs. 

 I then perceived that the bird, in order to find its way 

 to this nest, had to pass entirely through the thatch 

 on the opposite side of the ridge, and the hole which 

 it thus converted into a passage was such as might 

 have been made by a rat. I am sorry to say that this 

 eccentric trait of the kingfisher had no further con- 

 sequences, as far as my observations extended ; but 

 my informant being an intelligent man and worthy of. 

 belief, I think it right, as a humble admirer of Captain 

 Cuttle's systematic mode of dealing with remarkable 

 discoveries, to ' make a note of it.' The kingfisher's 

 eggs, which I have recently become possessed of, were 

 taken from an excavation in the bank of a stream. 

 They were seven in number, and with them was 

 brought quite a museum of fish bones, so many indeed, 

 that the accumulation of them must, I fancy, have 

 been the work of more than one season. I suspect 

 they were the rejectanea of one or more broods of 

 former seasons. They consisted chiefly of gill-plates 

 and vertebra:;, with a few shells of aquatic molluscs 

 and wing-cases of small beetles ; but I could not 

 detect any scales among them. Some years ago I 

 had an opportunity of examining one of these habi- 

 tations, in which I was told a brood of young had 

 been reared, and found scarcely a vestige of their 

 family records in the neatly rounded extremity of 

 their burrow." 



The Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) is sparingly 

 distributed among the few hedgerows that are left, and 

 the Grey Flycatcher ( Muscicapa grisola) is generally 

 dispersed in our woods, orchards and gardens. The 

 Raven (Corvus corax) rears a family with us every 



