KINGFISHER. 227 



Aii account of the Kingfisher would be incomplete if left 

 without any reference to the powers attributed to this bird 

 by some of the older naturalists and poets ; and the follow- 

 ing brief notice is therefore condensed from the pages of 

 Pennant, and the more recently published observations of 

 Mr. J. H. Fennell on Shakspeare^s knowledge of Natural 

 History. 



It was formerly believed that during the time the 

 Halcyon or Kingfisher was engaged in hatching her eggs, 

 the water in kindness to her remained so smooth and calm? 

 that the mariner might venture on the sea with the happy 

 certainty of not being exposed to storms or tempests ; this 

 period was therefore called by Pliny and Aristotle the 

 Halcyon Days. It was even supposed that the Kingfisher 

 had power to quell the storm ; and in reference to the 

 dangerous situation of the female when sitting in her 

 water-bound nest, Dryden, in his translation of Ovid's 

 Metamorphoses, has the lines 



-" Her sire at length is kind, 



Calms every storm, and hushes every wind." 



Theocritus, a Greek pastoral poet, as translated by Fawkes, 

 has also the following line 



" May Halcyons smooth the waves and calm the seas." 



W. Browne, as quoted by Mr. Fennell, writes 



" Blow, but gently blow fayre wynde, 



From the forsaken shore, 

 And be as to the Halcyon kinde, 

 Till we have ferried o'er/' 



Shakspeare refers to the supposed influence of the King- 

 fisher in the First Part of Henry the Sixth 



" Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days." 



Q2 



