248 An English Stream. 



Welcome signal ! how they raise 

 Their open beaks for morsels new ! 



Then the good repast enjoyed, 

 He returns where late he flew. 



Sits upon his perch again, 



Like a figure in a dream, 

 Brilliant hues of sun and rain 



Make a sunlight on the stream. 



King of fishes, truly, thou, 



Patient as was Izaak old,* 

 But have you ever in your heart 



A tender pity all untold ? 



The poetical idea of the kingfisher making " a sun- 

 light " or a rainbow on the water in a leaf-shaded 

 place has not perhaps an entirely poetical origin. We 

 read in a good authority 



" The kingfisher has frequently been observed hover- 

 ing on outstretched wings over the water, and some 

 writers believe that this is done with a view of attracting 

 the fish to the surface. Whether this is the case is 

 not yet ascertained, but it is well known that when a 

 light is thrown at night on the water, the inhabitants 

 of the ' finny deep ' flock in numbers to discover the 

 cause of the unwonted brilliancy." 



And we have ourselves often sat in a shady spot by 

 the border of a brook thickly overhung with foliage, 

 and noticed that where a small ray of sunlight pene- 

 trated and struck the water, there the small fish rose 

 to bask in it. The kingfisher perhaps makes an 

 artificial sunlight which helps him. 



In Wood's " Natural History " it is said that the 

 kingfisher is fond of music. On playing an organ in 

 a room facing a river, it was found that several of the 



* Izaak Walton, author of "The Compleat Angler," born in London 

 1593, and died in 1683. 



