282 Wild, Life in a Southern County 



When feeding his young he will carry a fish apparently as 

 long as himself a considerable distance. 



One summer I went several days in succession to a 

 hedge two fields distant from the nearest brook, and hid 

 on the mound with a gun. I had not been there long 

 before a kingfisher flew past, keeping just clear of the 

 hedge, but low down and close under the boughs of the 

 trees, and going in a direction which would not lead to a 

 brook or pond. This seemed curious; but presently he 

 came back again, uttering the long whistle which is his 

 peculiar note. About an hour, perhaps less, elapsed when 

 he returned again, this time carrying something in his 

 beak that gleamed white and silvery in the sun a fish. 

 The next day it was the same, and the next. The king- 

 fisher, or rather two of them, went continually to and fro, 

 and it was astonishing what a number of fish they took. 

 Never more than an hour, often less, elapsed without one 

 or other going by. The fish varied much in size, some- 

 times being very small. 



They had a nest, of course, somewhere ; but, being 

 under the idea that they always built near brooks or in the 

 high banks often seen at the back of ponds, it was diffi- 

 cult for me to imagine where the nest could be. To all 

 appearance they flew straight through a small opening in 

 another hedge, at the corner of the two in fact, about two 

 hundred yards distant. Presently it occurred to me that 

 this might be an illusion, that the birds did not really 

 pass through the hedge, but had a nest somewhere in that 

 corner. 



Just in the very angle was an old disused sawpit, 

 formed by enlarging the ditch, and made some years be- 

 fore for the temporary convenience of sawing up a few 

 heavy * sticks ' of timber that were thrown thereabouts. 



