70 



BIRDS FINCHES DIAGRAM 4 



ORDEK OF FINCHES. 



The kingfishers are finches, they have a straight beak like the 

 woodpeckers, and three toes in front, two 

 of which are partly united. Their food 

 consists of aquatic animals. They are also 

 brilliantly coloured. Their patience is 

 Foot of Kingfisher, extraordinary, and they are often seen 

 sitting motionless on branches or stones at the edge of the 

 water, watching for what may pass, and darting like an arrow 

 on the prey which they perceive. Sometimes, too, they fish 

 flying, .and then, pouncing into the water, they rise again 

 immediately with the animal which they pursued in their leak. 

 They make their nests in the holes of the banks, only con- 

 solidating the sides. They lay from four to eight eggs, which 

 are generally white. The male and female r sit on the eggs 

 alternately, and share the labour of feeding the young by 

 bringing them the results of their fishing. 



The goat-suckers are remarkable for the enormous yizo of their 

 beak when open, though the horny part of the beak is small. 

 Their plumage is dull-coloured. Many absurd stories have been 

 told of these birds. It was believed, for instance, that they 

 come to suck goats, whereas they only como to search in the 

 hair and wool of sheep and goats for tlio insects that are found 

 there, and of which they relieve them, As they live on no other 



food than mosquitoes, 

 gnats, and all kinds of 

 twilight-flying insects, 

 the goatsuckers are 

 really very useful birds, 

 which ought on no 

 account to be destroy- 

 ed. They do not pass 

 Head of (loaf-sucker. the winter with us : 



