400 BIRD LIFE AT BINGHAIVTS MELCOMBE 



Little wonder is it, when the bird is so beautiful 

 and its habits so remarkable, that legends began to 

 cluster round it from the earliest time. Ceyx, the 

 husband of Alcyone, was drowned. Mad with 

 grief, the widow flung herself into the sea after him ; 

 and her father, /Eolus, the lord of the winds, 

 changed, so it was said, the faithful and ill-fated pair 

 into halcyons or kingfishers, which built their 

 floating nest upon the waves, and, for twice seven 

 days, in the depth of winter, sat upon their eggs, 

 while -^Eolus kept the winds in prison those 

 " halcyon days " which we talk of still. 



" Blow, but gently blow, faire wind, 



From the deserted shore ; 

 And be as to the halcyon kind, 

 Till we are ferried o'er." 



The legend grew ; and the halcyons themselves 

 were soon supposed to be able to still the waves, 

 and were addressed in prayer accordingly. " May 

 halcyons smooth the waves and calm the seas," 

 prays the Sicilian poet, Theocritus. Nor did 

 their knowledge of the winds, and their power over 

 them, end with their lives. It clung to them even 

 in death ! The skin or the body of the halcyon, if 

 hung up by a single thread, was supposed, in 

 England, from the time of Queen Elizabeth almost 



