44 What Birds Have Done With Me 



things, that is not always, alas, characteristic of 

 mature age. Every Kingfisher on the Lake 

 knows to this day, how he and his brother had 

 worked for nearly a whole day to dig out a 

 grand-father and grand-mother Kingfishers' nest 

 in the high bank near "Gray Rock," and then and 

 there repented of their evil deeds, and spent a 

 half day longer to repair the injury they had done. 

 There is an old and truly scientific saying, that all 

 life conies from an egg, and perhaps it is a sub- 

 conscious curiosity, that in some way never leaves 

 us, about the origin of life, that makes a natural 

 nest robber of every child. Though only eight 

 and ten years old, they were wiser than the an- 

 cients, if there be truth to the story that they 

 called the Kingfisher a Halcyon, and thought it 

 made its nest on the water in stormless periods, 

 from which the term "Halcyon days" has come 

 down to us. How these urchins would have 

 laughed at, and exulted over, those old worthies 

 if they had known of the myth. To think that 

 they could never find a single nest when the boys 

 knew of three or four what boobies they must 

 have been it is likely that we fail to give an idea 

 of the scorn they would have felt and expressed 

 picturesquely. 



My, but the sun was red hot, and had his eye 

 directly upon them, when they settled down at 

 the lure of a possible white egg, whose existence 



