346 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



frost-bound, and their storm-driven inhabitants obliged to seek the open 

 waters near the sea. Even here the poor Kingfisher often fares badly, and 

 after an unusual spell of frost numbers of them are picked up starved to 

 death. Examples are sometimes found frozen to the branch on which they 

 have been sitting." 



Few birds are connected with more fables than the Kingfisher. The 

 superstition that a dead Kingfisher, when suspended by a thread, would 

 turn its beak * to that particular point of the compass from which the wind 

 blew, is now fortunately as dead as the Kingfishers on whom the experiment 

 was tried. The classical fable that the breeding-season of the Kingfisher was 

 in midwinter, when the sea remained calm and undisturbed by tempestsf, 

 is equally as inexplicable and as profoundly forgotten. 



The Kingfisher is so well known that it scarcely needs description. The 

 upper parts, including the cheeks, vary from metallic cobalt-blue, especially 

 brilliant on the back, to emerald-green, barred on the head and spotted on 

 the wing-coverts. The underparts are rich chestnut, shading into white on 

 the throat ; and the lores and the ear-coverts are also chestnut, shading 

 into white on the sides of the neck* Bill black; legs and feet red; irides 

 dark brown. There are no differences in the colour of the plumage attri- 

 butable to age, sex, or season of any importance, except those of the young 

 in first plumage, in which the bill and feet are brown, all the colours paler 

 and suffused with brown, especially on the breast, which is barred with 

 greenish grey. 



* " But how now stands the wind ? 



Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill ? " 



MABLOWE : Jew of Malta. 



t " This night the siege assuredly I '11 raise : 



Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days." 



SHAKESPEARE : Henry VI. 



