170 NA T URE-ST UD Y RE VIE W [16 :4— April, 1920 



tree-fringed lakes and ponds." No love or cradle song does the 

 kingfisher know. Instead of softening and growing sweet, as the 

 voices of most birds do in the nesting season, the endearments 

 uttered by a pair of mated kingfishers are the most strident, rattly 

 shrieks ever heard by lovers. It sounds as if they were perpetually 

 quarreling, and yet they are really particularly devoted. 



No doubt you have heard that all birds are descended from 

 reptile ancestors; that feathers are but modified scales, and that a 

 bird's song is but the glorified hiss of the serpent. Then the king- 

 fisher and the bank swallow retain at least one ancient custom of 

 their ancestors, for they still place their eggs in the ground. The 

 young are raised in such a dark, damp place you might think, at 

 first sight, that all of them would die of consimiption. They never 

 get even a glint of sunlight till they are old enough to climb out of 

 the cave and take flight. Think of living in a deep well till you are 

 grown ! 



The lone fisherman chooses a mate early in the spring and, with 

 her help, he tunnels a hole in a bank next a good fishing ground. A 

 minnow pool furnishes the most approved baby food. Like the 

 bank swallows, tho their feet are undeveloped, short and weak, they 

 use them as trowels for excavating holes in sandbanks, etc. The 

 third and fourth toes are joined together, which undoubtedly 

 assists the kingfisher in pushing out the soil when excavating. 

 Major Bendire says that while it may take a pair three weeks to 

 excavate their nest, he has known them to make a tunnel five feet 

 long in a little over three days. The tunnel in the bank is a hori- 

 zontal one. Sometimes there is a vestibule of several feet before 

 the nest, the spacious nursery is reached, and at other times it is 

 built very close to the opening. Uusually from five to eight white 

 eggs are laid about six feet from the entrance on a bundle of grass, 

 or perhaps on a heap of ejected fish bones and refuse. The fact 

 that his house is carpeted with such a rough floor must be entirely 

 incidental, since the food of the young is largely fish. Two alter- 

 native propostions are probable: (i) The kingfisher wants to 

 adorn his home with the trophies of his many hunts. (2) He is too 

 lazy to carry in anything else. 



About the Kingfisher's home life I can do no better than by 

 referring to the very interesting observations made by Mr. W. L. 

 Bailey. "A hole in a bank seems a strange place in which to build 

 a nest, but altho one may know it to be the home of a kingfisher, he 



