172 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



builds but a careless nest a loose structure of small 

 fish bones and dry soil. These substances are the 

 hard indigestible parts which it has in common 

 with birds of prey the power of ejecting. The hole 

 in which the nest is placed is usually about three 

 feet from the face of a bank, and slopes upward. 

 The five or six eggs deposited in it are certainly the 

 most beautiful of all of our indigenous birds. They 

 are purely white, and before being blown are suffused 

 with an exquisite pinkness from the yolk. Of the 

 many so-called nests I have examined, none were 

 compact ; and it would seem that the fish bones and 

 soil deposited in the holes were rather ejections than 

 substances actually taken there. The pretty myths 

 indulged in by the poets concerning this bird have 

 given it the name of Halcyon. It was formerly 

 believed that during the time the kingfisher was 

 engaged in hatching, the water, in kindness to her, 

 remained so smooth and calm that mariners without 

 fear explored the deeps. The period was termed by 

 the older Greek poets the Halcyon days. Another 

 attribute of the kingfisher was its power to quell 

 storms, which idea Chaucer introduces. Then 

 there is a second power possessed by the dead 

 bird, when suspended by a silken string, of turning 

 its back to that point of the compass from which 

 the wind blows. Scores of couplets are scattered 

 through the works of Pliny, Aristotle, Theocritus, 



