60 BELTED KINGSFISHER. 



fisher; and the sound of his pipe is as well known to the miller 

 as the rattling of his own hopper. Rapid streams, with high 

 perpendicular banks, particularly if they be of a hard clayey 

 or sandy nature, are also favourite places of resort for this bird; 

 not only because in such places the small fish are more exposed 

 to view; but because those steep and dry banks are the chosen 

 situations for his nest. Into these he digs with bill and claws, 

 horizontally, sometimes to the extent of four or five feet, at the 

 distance of a foot or two from the surface. The few materials 

 he takes in are not always placed at the extremity of the hole; 

 that he and his mate may have room to turn with convenience. 

 The eggs are five, pure white, and the first brood usually comes 

 out about the beginning of June, and sometimes sooner, accord- 

 ing to that part of the country where they reside. On the shores 

 of Kentucky river, near the town of Frankfort, I found the fe- 

 male sitting early in April. They are very tenacious of their 

 haunts, breeding for several successive years in the same hole, 

 and do not readily forsake it, even though it be visited. An 

 intelligent young gentleman informed me, that having found 

 where a Kingsfisher built, he took away its eggs, from time to 

 time, leaving always one behind, until he had taken no less 

 than eighteen from the same nest. At some of these visits, the 

 female being within, retired to the extremity of the hole while 

 he withdrew the egg, and next day, when he returned, he found 

 she had laid again as usual. 



The fabulous stories related by the ancients of the nest, man- 

 ner of hatching, &c. of the Kingsfisher, are too trifling to be re- 

 peated here. Over the winds and the waves the humble Kings- 

 fishers of our days, at least the species now before us have no 

 control. Its nest is neither constructed of glue nor fish-bones; 

 but of loose grass and a few feathers. It is not thrown on the 

 surface of the water to float about, with its proprietor, at ran- 

 dom ; but snugly secured from the winds and the weather in 

 the recesses of the earth; neither is its head or its feathers be- 

 lieved, even by the most illiterate of our clowns or seamen, to 

 be a charm for love, a protection against witchcraft, or a secu- 



