THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



151 



these ridges must have served to check 

 any movement up or down, the wire must 

 have rotated freely in the wound, often 

 catching in obstacles and causing the 

 animal intense pain. 



How the wire became so firmly fastened 

 around the limb must remain a secret of 

 the animal's painful life story, for the 

 owner tells us that it was wild and un- 

 broken, and wa.s only seen about once a 

 month. Perhaps the unfortunate creature 



became entangled in a length of wire, and, 

 in frantic efforts to break loose, twisted 

 the ends firmly before doing so and thus 

 it carried the incubus to an early equine 

 grave. Another possibility is that the 

 wire loop was lying on the ground and 

 the young horse stepped through it, 

 whereupon it either worked up with the 

 action of walking or the animal, in trying 

 tft rub it off, only succeeded in more firmly 

 establishing the unwelcome leglet. 



Bird Notes. 



By J. R. KiNGHORN. 



THE SACRED KINGFISHER AND 

 ITS YOUNG. 



About the middle of last December a 

 bird lover at Hunter's Hill wrote to the 

 Museum to the effect that several pairs 

 of kingfishers were nesting in two bird's- 

 nest ferns (a species of staghorn), and 

 stated that last year, when the king- 

 fishers were sitting, a gale, accompanied 

 by torrential rains, flooded the birds 

 out, drowning one «f the parents. He 

 had observed that one pair took it in 

 turns to fly to a staghorn (the brown 

 under part) and peck away at the fibre 

 in an endeavour to make a burrow. The 

 writer visited the locality to exa- 

 mine the nest and site and found that 

 the staghorn was growing on an old 

 sawn-off tree stump about twelve feet 

 from the ground, and on the under side, 

 sheltered by over-hanging leaves, was a 

 hole or burrow (the nest) extending in- 

 wards for six or eight inches, the far 

 end being slightly enlarged, but there 

 were no eggs. The birds were very 

 shy, sitting 30 or 40 yards away high 

 up in the trees, apparently watching 

 very closely to see that no damage was 

 done. \ 



I again visited the locality on Janu- 

 ary 14th and found tliat the new nest 

 had not been occupied. I peered inside 



with a light and noticed that the floor 

 was very damp as if the rain had flood- 

 ed it out, and perhaps it was on this 



Nest of the sacred kingfisher, Halcyoa 

 sanctus, in a staghorn, Hunter's Hill. 



Photo. — .1. K. Kinghora. 



account that the birds had decided not 

 to make their home there after all, but 

 had gone to another staghorn which was 

 growing about six feet from the ground 



