A NEST OF BONES 



building a stout mud house in an exposed situation, it 

 excavates in a bank a deep burrow with a round chamber at 

 the end, and in the chamber it builds a beautiful nest. The 

 tunnel, from two to six feet long, has an opening which is 

 only just large enough to allow the bird to pass in and out, 

 and from this slopes gradually upwards, so that there is no 

 danger of the heaviest rains penetrating to the nesting 

 chamber. Owing to the direction of the burrow the chamber 

 at its further extremity is in complete darkness, and there 

 the bird makes a domed nest of soft grass, with an opening 

 at the side. 



The Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida), the most brilliantly clad of 

 all our native birds, is also one of the miners. Peculiar and 

 striking in appearance, its habits are not less curious. In 

 the early spring, when choosing a nesting-place, it invariably 

 selects for the purpose some steep, dry bank, destitute of all 

 vegetation, up which neither rat nor weasel, nor any other 

 carnivorous animal, can make its way. There, a foot or two 

 below the edge of the bank, the kingfisher bores a round 

 hole not much more than two inches in diameter. Sloping 

 upwards a little, the tunnel penetrates into the earth for 

 more than half a yard and ends in a smooth, round cavity 

 a little higher than the width of the burrow and about 

 twice as broad. The dry earth which forms the floor of the 

 little chamber is covered with small fish-bones, and on this 

 strange and odorous nest are placed from five to seven 

 relatively large, almost round eggs, with shells of lustrous 

 whiteness. When recently laid the eggs appear to have 

 a pinkish hue owing to the presence of the yolk within the 

 thin translucent shell, but after being blown the latter has 

 the brilliance and purity of fine white enamel. They are 

 about the same size as a quail's eggs, and as Bechstein, the 

 well-known German naturalist, has observed, it is difficult to 



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