804 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



may live several years." From tliis it would seem that 

 spiders are generally not long-lived, and my garret spec- 

 imen is an exception to rule. I Lope to learn her whole 

 life-history before another year. 



A rattling, noisy kingfisher finally disturbed the quiet, 

 and I followed his flight, up stream, till he alighted on 

 a projecting dead limb of an overhanging elm. Here 

 he sat, watching for small fishes, with one eye on me, I 

 suppose, for as I changed my seat to get a better view, 

 oflf he darted, with a repetition of his disagreeable scream- 

 ing rattle. I have no disposition to question the con- 

 clusion that every habit and peculiarity of an animal is 

 derived through some evolutionary process, and all with 

 the result of a survival of the fittest; still I cannot but 

 marvel that such discordant cries should ever have been 

 evolved, and of what use they now are is past finding 

 out. 



Fairly attentive to each other, as are mated kingfishers, 

 it does seem as if they would be more amiable could 

 they speak in pleasanter tones ; for in their subterranean 

 nests, or near them, indeed, whenever together, they rat- 

 tle and scream with all the harshness, although less loud- 

 ly, than when alone, busy at fishing. 



The kingfisher that I had lately seen and could still 

 hear, far up the creek, recalled one of its kind that years 

 ago I experimented upon, as to its bump of locality, as 

 the phrenologists call it. A pair had burrowed into a 

 clay-sand cliff near the creek, and were constantly seen 

 going to and fro between their nest and the stream. 

 During their absence I filled the opening to the nest 

 with a ball of clay, and obliterated all traces of the 



