236 ALCYONES. 



fore we need hardly wonder at the superstition, or at the 

 extension of it to other matters, against which much ridicule 

 has sometimes been directed. But it cannot be too often 

 . repeated, that that ridicule is actually more injurious than 

 the superstition itself. A natural superstition is merely a 

 false application of a striking natural fact ; and the business 

 of true wisdom is to find out that fact, and apply it pro- 

 perly. The kingfisher is, in all senses of the word, a very 

 "beautiful" subject. 



The kingfisher not only nestles, but generally reposes, in 

 some hole in the bank ; and as its feet, and even its bill 

 (which is a fishing-spear), does not adapt it very well for 

 being an excavator, it generally selects one that is ready 

 made ; but whether, as has sometimes been said, it ejects the 

 water rats, is not ascertained by any recorded witnessing of 

 the actual ejectment, though the objection of the water rat 

 eating the eggs and young, which is also conjectural, has 

 nothing in it. A crow would eat the eggs or young of the 

 eagle ; but if Aquila should catch him in the fact, his doom 

 would be as black as his feathers. 



As it is only on particular days, and at particular hours, 

 that the kingfisher can fish to advantage, he feeds abundantly 

 at those times, and his gullet and stomach are ample in 

 proportion. If the prey is very small and soft, he bolts it 

 on the wing ; but if it is larger, he goes ashore ; and if it is 

 large and lively, he beats it against a stone, and after swal- 

 lowing it, returns to his fishing : nor is it till after he has 

 been gorged to the very throat, or the fishing tide is at an 

 end, that he retires to his hole. There he digests and dozes, 

 and often remains for days before he again sallies forth ; and 

 when all the soluble matter is separated, he ejects the bones 

 in those castings which are found in his den, and which, as 

 they contain nothing but that which is capable of resisting 

 the gastric juice of the bird, do not decompose in the air, so 



