18 



KINGFISHER. 



KIN'GSFrSHEIl. COMMON KINGFISHER. 

 COMMON KINGSFISHER. 



GLAS Y DORIAN, OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH. 



Alcedo ispldn, LIXN.KUS. 



Jspidn Senegalensis, BlllSSOX. 



Gracula Atthis, GMELIN. LATHAM. 



A Kingfisher. Tsplda (or, properly, Hispida,} 



Rough, as with wet. 



A GOOD figure of the Kingfisher was stated a few years 

 since to be still a 'desideratum.' The accompanying plate, 

 from a design by my friend, the Rev. R. P. Alington, supplies 

 the want, and leaves nothing to be yet desired. I fearlessly 

 assert it to be the best ever yet produced. 



My 'random recollections' of the Kingfisher are associated 

 with my school days 'halcyon days' indeed when so gay a 

 bird was an especial mark for our guns, a prize to figure in 

 the drawing books in which the 'exuviae' of our excursions 

 were arranged. The next of the 'seven stages' saw me on 

 the banks of the stream in Berkshire, already alluded to when 

 speaking of the Merlin, following up a more congenial pursuit 

 than the ostensible one of 'reading with a private tutor.' 

 Standing on a little wooden bridge, 'in utrumque paratus,' 

 a Hying or a sitting shot, the often admired Kingfisher 

 glittered up the brook, and, alas! though the first that I had 

 ever obtained a shot at, fell into the water, and was soon 

 floated down to where I stood. A fortnight afterwards, at 

 the very same spot, almost literally 'stans pede in uno,' the 

 same tiling happened again. A third, years afterwards, un- 

 fortunately flew in front of a boat in which I was rowing 

 my brother, whose gun came but too readily to my hand. 



