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BELTED KINGFISHER. 



GEEAT BELTED KINGFISHER. 



Alcedo Alcyon, LINNAEUS. WILSON. 



Alcedo The Latin name of the Kingfisher. Alcyon, or 



Halcyon The Greek name of the Kingfisher. 



THE far-famed Halcyon of the ancients, whose name this 

 species bears, but, doubtless erroneously, as being an American 

 bird, must not be altogether left unnoticed in treating of the 

 Kingfisher, particularly as many of the superstitions of so 

 'long, long ago,' have been continued, even clown to our own 

 enlightened age, and are in existence at present. By some, 

 its head or feathers have been esteemed a charm for love, a 

 protection against witchcraft, or a security for fair weather: 

 by many it has been dreaded, by others venerated. It has 

 been supposed to float on the waters in its nest, and during 

 the period of its incubation, forty days, days therefore desig- 

 nated by its own name as happy and beautiful ones, to be 

 the cause of every wind being hushed, and every storm calmed; 

 its stuffed skin hung up, has been recently, and probably is 

 still thought to act a sort of magnetic part, by always pointing 

 its beak towards the north, or, according to another version, 

 towards the quarter from whence the wind might blow. It 

 has again been imagined to have the power of averting 

 thunder, revealing hidden treasures, bestowing beauty on the 

 person that carried it, and when dead, to renew its own 

 feathers at the season of moulting. 



The accompanying figure is taken from a foreign specimen, 

 which I have had in my collection for some years. For the 

 description of the habits of the bird, I am indebted to 

 Wilson. 



