Kingfisher. 297 



' List of British Birds' to be derived from hispidus, ' rough, 

 prickly/ in allusion to these fish bones in the nesting- hole. On 

 the downs of North Wiltshire we should scarcely expect to meet- 

 with this bird, yet I have more than once disturbed it in one of the 

 winterbournes, or watercourses, within three miles of its source, 

 which is never more than an insignificant stream, and oftentimes is- 

 perfectly dry in summer ; so that the slightest thread of running 

 water seems to satisfy its requirements. Except in the breeding 

 season, it is a shy bird, and generally avoids the habitations of man ;. 

 it is also essentially solitary in its habits, and, except during the 

 breeding season, is always found alone ; its mode of seizing the 

 smaller fish on which it preys is singular ; it will sit for a con- 

 siderable time on a rail or bush overhanging the water, and watch 

 in patience the arrival of some victim, when with the most rapid 

 flight it will dart like lightning beneath the surface, and seizing 

 its unsuspected prey in its bill, bring it back to the station it 

 before occupied, there to be devoured at leisure ; at other times it 

 may be seen shooting like a meteor over the brook, always, 

 however, following the course of the stream, and if its quick eye 

 catches sight of food, you may see it suddenly stop, hover with 

 expanded wings for a moment, and then drop like a stone into the 

 water, from which it will as quickly emerge with its quivering 

 victim firmly held between the mandibles of its beak ; and this it 

 will either at once devour, or else beat to death against a stone and 

 then swallow whole. And yet with this plunging propensity, and 

 this fearlessness in precipitating itself into deep water from which 

 it always emerges unscathed, it is essentially a land bird, and has 

 no affinity with the water fowl, with which Bewick and some of 

 the older naturalists classed it. Neither can it seek the water on a 

 rough stormy day ; for the fishing manoeuvres above recorded to- 

 be successful, calm quiet weather is necessary, when the water is 

 neither thickened by rain nor ruffled by wind, but as the elements 

 are not always so propitious to its piscatory expeditions, the 

 Kingfisher (like the true birds of prey) will gorge itself 

 voraciously at one time, and then retire to digest its heavy meal at 

 leisure. Another habit too it possesses in common with the 



