436 HisToiiY or 



bottom to a good size ; and lining it with the down ot the wil- 

 low, lay its eggs there without any further preparation. 



Its nest, or rather hole, is very different from that described 

 by the ancients, by whom it is said to be made in the shape of 



which has been denominated Diogenes' lantern, and meeting in a central 

 point. 



Belon, who found the kingfisher plentiful on the banks of the Hebrus, in 

 Thrace, appears to have been the tirst author wlio correctly stated that it 

 makes its nest by raining into the sand, and was somewhat fearful that ho 

 should not be credited because he contradicted the ancients. Up to the 

 present time, however, more or less misrepresentation has been introduced 

 into the descriptions of its burrow. Gesner furnishes it with a soft bed of 

 reed flowers ; Goldsmith says it lines its hole with the down of the willow ; 

 and colonel Montagu, half reverting to the ball of tish bones described by 

 Aristotle, tells us that at the end of the hole there is a kind of bedding 

 formed of the bones of small fish and some other substances, evidently the 

 castings of the parent birds, generally about half an inch thick, and mixed in 

 «ith the earth. He farther thinks there is every reason to suppose that both 

 the male and the female come to tliis spot to eject the refuse of their food 

 for some time before the latter begins to lay, and that they dry it by the 

 heat of their bodies, as they are frequently known to continue in the hole 

 for hours long before laying ; and on this disgorged matter tlie female de- 

 posits and hatches her eggs. Belon's account is very similar. 



From the high authority of Montagu, the latter description is now copied 

 as authentic by every modern author, with the exception of Temminck, 

 who says nothing on the subject, and Wilson, who says of his belted king- 

 fisher, that " its nest is neither constructed of glue nor fish-bones." We are 

 certain, says Mr Rennie, that this contradiction of the general belief will 

 apply equally to the kingfisher of England. In the barJi of a stream at Lee, 

 in Kent, we have been acquainted with one of these nests in the same hole 

 for several successive summers, but so far from the pellets of fish-bones, 

 ejected as is done by all birds of prey, being dried on purpose to form the 

 nest, they are scattered about the floor of the hole in all directions, from its 

 entrance to its termination, without the least order or working up with the 

 earth, and are all moist and fetid. That the eggs may by accident be hiid 

 upon portions of these fish-bones, is highly probable, for the floor is so thickly 

 strewed «ith them, that no vacant spot might be found ; but they assuredly 

 ai-e not by design built into a nest. The hole is from two to four feet long, 

 sloping upv^ards, and narrow at the entrance, but widening in the interior, 

 in order, perhaps, to give the birds room to turn ; and for the same appiu-ent 

 reason the eggs are not placed at the extremity. We ;ire somewhat doubt- 

 ful whether it selects, as is said, the old hole of a water-rat to save itself 

 trouble, the water-rat being the deadly enemy of its eggs and young j but 

 it seems to indicate a dislike to the laboiu- of digging, that it frequents the 

 same hole for a series of years, and will not abandon it, though the nest be 

 repeatedly plundered. The accumulation of cast bones in one of these old 

 holes has perhaps given origin to the notion of the neat being formed of 

 them. 



Our own opportunities, continues Mr Rennie, of carefully studying the 



