174 WOODLANDERS AND FIELD FOLK 



works. From the gnarled root on which you have 

 just sat down you may view the life around. You 

 have selected well your spot, and are soon rewarded. 

 There is an overhanging, stunted, leafless bough over 

 there, and upon it has just alighted a kingfisher. 

 At first its form is motionless ; soon it assumes more 

 animation, and anon is all eye and ear. Then it 

 darts hangs for a moment in the air like a kestrel, 

 and returns to its perch. Again it flashes with 

 unerring aim and secures something. This is tossed, 

 beaten and broken with a formidable beak, and then 

 swallowed head foremost. The process is again and 

 again repeated, and you find that the prey is small 

 fish. From watching an hour you are entranced at 

 the 'beauty of the fluttering, quivering thing, as the 

 sun shines upon its green and gold vibrations in 

 mid-air. You gain some estimation, too, of the 

 vast amount of immature fish which a pair of king- 

 fishers and their young must destroy in a single 

 season. Later in summer you may see the young 

 brood, with open, quivering wings, and constant 

 calling, as the parent birds fly to and fro. Their 

 plumage is little less brilliant than that of the adult. 

 The hole in which the young are reared is never made 

 by the parent birds, but always by some small, 

 burrowing rodent, or occasionally by the little sand- 

 martin. 



The food of this species is almost entirely fish 



