Remarks on the Habits of the Kingfishers 



163 



20 of his large book on the birds of North America, mentions a Kingfisher that 

 was found in 1850 on the shore of a Httle Connecticut creek with a clam-shell 

 closed over his bill. This fact, together with experiences of my own, leads me 

 to believe that the Kingfisher some- 

 times fishes from a mud-flat or 

 even standing in shallow water. A 

 live clam, so far as I know, does 

 not open his shell unless exposed 

 to the air, nor is he found in na- 

 ture above the surface of the mud. 

 A Kingfisher would hardly dive at 

 an object on or in the dry mud. 

 What, then, could the bird in ques- 

 tion have been doing when he 

 found the clam ? Obviously he was 

 either standing or walking on the 

 ground. 



Though I have not yet been 

 able to prove this statement from 

 my own observations, yet I have 

 had several experiences which lead 

 me to believe that it is true. Once 

 I awoke early in the morning in my 

 tent on the shore of a little lake in 

 Maine. The film of sleep was still 

 upon my eyes, and I rubbed them 

 sleepily as I sat up and looked out 

 upon the water. There, close in 

 shore, was a small bird resembling 

 a Kingfisher standing in the shal- 

 low water, where a school of young 

 bass, the prey of every passing 

 pickerel, had congregated for pro- 

 tection from the larger fish. The 

 dampness of the lake mist got into 

 my nostrils and I felt that I must sneeze. I lay back quickly among my 

 blankets out of sight. When I peered out again, the bird had disappeared. 

 Several years later I was watching near the bank of a salt-water creek for the 

 appearance of a Woodchuck at the mouth of his hole, when a Kingfisher sud- 

 denly flew up from somewhere below the bank, where, I could not see. He had 

 either been on a low rock or on the mud itself. The former may have been the 

 case, for I have seen Kingfishers fishing from perches not over a foot above the 

 water. This question still remains to be solved. 



KINGFISHER 

 Photographed by Henry R. Carey 



