66 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



fish he returns to his perch with great exultation to devour 

 it, or to the nest to feed it to his spouse or their young. 



The flight of the kingfisher consists of a few flaps of 

 the wings, followed by a glide. Sometimes he pauses and 

 seems to stand upon his feet and beat the air with his 

 wings, as a sparrow hawk does in hovering over a meadow. 

 In this way he occasionally stops in his flight over a stream 

 and watches for his food. Mr. Selim H. Peabody in his Book 

 of Birds, in giving an account of the kingfisher, says : "His 

 sight is very keen, and he finds his prey even in the 

 turbid rapids of a waterfall. He knows, too, how to take a 

 position which will make the best of the sunshine. One 

 sunny afternoon I was observing a kingfisher, which sat upon 

 a naked limb of an oak, overlooking the water. For a long 

 time the bird saw nothing, and did not move. Presently he 

 left his perch, and flew along the margin of the lake rather in 

 the direction of the sun. After going a few rods he stopped, 

 turned his back to the sun, and for a few seconds stood 

 balanced on his wings, and looked intently into the water. 

 Then he turned, went on a few rods farther, again turned his 

 back to the sun, repeated his careful gaze, and again went 

 on. At the third or fourth pause, he spied a fish, and dropped 

 upon it like an arrow. At each pause he placed himself in 

 the air over the water, so that the reflection from the surface 

 would be turned away from him." Sometimes his flight is 

 very high in the air, so high that he can not be seen with 

 the naked eye, and one only knows that he is passing over 

 by the rattling noise which he makes. He is not gifted with 

 song, but is a noisy bird. The harsh noise made by him is 

 much like that made by a watchman's whistle, and not at all 

 pleasing. 



The kingfisher has been the subject of many legends. 

 One of these is that having been originally a plain, gray 

 bird, it acquired its bright colors by flying towards the 

 sun on its liberation from Noah's ark, when its upper surface 

 assumed the hue of the sky above and its lower plumage 

 was scorched by the heat of the setting orb to the tint it now 

 bears. It was believed by the ancients that the kingfisher was 

 a charmed bird, and this belief is yet retained by some people. 



