Kingfishers 145 



an old railroad cut about half a mile away. I found it 

 by watching them take the overland route from the pond 

 after fishing hours. Near the entrance I saw two other 

 places where they had begun to dig, but it seemed they 

 had struck hard spots and had tried again till they got 

 a place that was soft and sandy. They chiselled the dirt 

 out with their bills, and pushed it along with their tiny 

 feet. As near as I could estimate, it took them a week 

 and a half to finish the burrow. The hallway sloped 

 slightly up and ran back four feet, where it ended in a 

 little dome-shaped room. From the door into the nest 

 were two little tracks, worn by the feet of the birds as 

 they went in and out. The female generally does most 

 of the setting, while the male returns occasionally and 

 supplies her with food. But in this family I think the 

 duties were somewhat reversed, for the male seemed unable 

 to do his part of the food gathering. 



I have often watched kingfishers plunge into the pools 

 and shallows for fish, and have wondered if they sometimes 

 did not miscalculate in their hasty, headlong dives. The 

 more I saw of the old king about the pond the more I 

 thought this was true. So one day we went over to the 

 nest, which was only about two feet below the top of the 

 bank, and measured back to where we thought the home 

 was and dug straight down to the nest. Both birds were 

 at home. We found the male bird had an injured bill, as 

 we had thought. The upper mandible of the bill had 

 apparently been broken some time before and was par- 

 tially healed, but was shorter than the lower one. From 

 the injured place the outer end of the beak bent up some- 

 what so the bird could not close its mouth except at the 



