A SURREY KINGFISHER. 355 



being, and it is only its absolute stillness that re- 

 assures them. I have seen many a one hop close 

 round the back of our hidden apparatus a long 

 while before it dared go to its nest, with the 

 awful eye on it in front. 



When snow is on the ground in winter, we feed 

 the birds in our garden, and then photograph them 

 with the apparatus hidden beneath the ample folds 

 of a white sheet or large table cloth." 



Last winter, when all the streams in Surrey 

 were swollen and muddy, a Kingfisher found its 

 way almost daily into a garden belonging to a 

 friend of ours living in the neighbourhood of 

 Redhill, and containing a pond in which a number 

 of goldfish were kept. The bird used to come 

 and sit on a little ash sapling sprouting from the 

 left hand bank of the pond, as seen from our 

 friend's house, or upon the trailing boughs of a 

 tree overhanging the right bank, and, whenever a 

 fish swam within its ken, it made a swift down- 

 ward plunge into the water, and, securing its prey, 

 flew with it to one or the other of its favourite 

 perches. The unfortunate victim quickly received 

 its quietus by a few vigorous blows on the branch, 

 and was then swallowed head foremost. 



Hearing of the bird's visits, my brother was 

 very anxious to try to photograph it, and a re- 

 sourceful friend of ours cut a round hole in the 

 side of a large wooden box, which he placed 

 on a gravel path some distance from the ash 

 sapling, moving it a little closer each day, in order 

 that by degrees the bird might get accustomed to 

 its presence. He next fixed an old door up in 

 such a position as to hide from the Kingfisher the 

 approach of anyone leaving a French window at 

 the end of the house, and carpeted the gravel path 



