360 



TBIBE IV. GAPING-BILLED BIRDS. FISSIROSTRES. 



" This guest of summer 

 The temple-haunting Martlet, does approve, 

 L ? y his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath 

 Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze, buttress, 

 Nor coigne of vantage, but this bird hath made 

 His pendant bed, and procreant cradle : where they 

 Most breed and haunt, I have observed the air 

 Is delicate." SHAKSPEARE. 



THE first family of the present group consists of the Bee 

 Eaters (Meropida) birds of bright plumage, natives of Africa 

 and of Asia Minor, which, as occasional visitors, are ranked 

 among British species. Next to "them the Kingfishers 

 (Halcyonidce, Fig. 273), claim our attention. There is but 



one native species (Al- 

 ee do ispida), and in 

 point of brilliant plum- 

 age, it is unquestionably 

 the first of British birds, 

 and not surpassed by 

 many of those belonging 

 to tropical countries. 

 It chooses for the site 

 of its nest some spot in 

 the overhanging bank 

 of a stream, and lives 

 upon small fish and 

 aquatic insects. King- 

 fishers, like many other 

 birds, possess the power 

 of reproducing the con- 

 tents of the stomach at 

 pleasure.* This is of 

 service at times in feed- 

 ing the young, and on other occasions in discharging, as in the 

 case of birds of prey, the indigestible portions of the food. 



It was formerly believed that the Kingfisher, or as it was 

 then termed, the Halcyon, hatched her eggs in a floating nest, 

 and that, during the time she was thus engaged, the winds 



* Yarrell's British Birds, vol. ii. to which the reader is referred for 

 information, drawn from various sources, respecting the fabled Halcyon. 



Fig. 273. KINGFISHER. 



