AN EXCURSION. 



ther you have noticed it or not, a minute ago one such 

 flew across the bow of our dinghi. It is seen everywhere 

 where there is water. I have often taken out young 

 birds from deep holes in banks of rivers and reared 

 them. One of them had grown so tame that I kept 

 it loose. It remained perched on one of the poles 

 of our little boat, and every now and then dived for 

 fish and water insects. There are also other kinds of 

 kingfishers ; but we are now nearing the Botanic garden 

 and I must conclude the subject by telling you some- 

 thing about the 



HABITS OF KINGFISHERS. 



The food of kingfishers consists of small fishes, 

 crustaceans, frogs, lizards, and aquatic insects. Patience, 

 precision, and swiftness are essential to creatures which 

 have to depend for their sustenance upon others equally 

 wary, alert, and swift ; and the kingfisher possesses these 

 qualities in an uncommon degree. Swift as an arrow it 

 darts on its prey as soon as one appears on the surface 

 of the water, secures it in the twinkling of an eye, and 

 then shoots back to its place of vantage. There is one 

 species, the Pied Kingfisher, which, instead of watching 

 for its prey from a fixed place, searches for it on the wing ; 

 it may often be seen hovering over a piece of water, and 

 now and then darting down almost perpendicularly to 

 secure a fish or a water-beetle. Kingfishers breed in 

 spring and summer, and select some steep bank of a 

 river or tank as their nesting place, and lay several 



