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as long as the little finger, in quick succession. One evening,

when watching the bird, I saw it suddenly fly upwards towards

the roof as if it were bent on breaking its neck against the wire,

but before reaching it, it as suddenly turned and darted with the

rapidity of lightning headfirst into the pool, returning to the

surface direCtly with a fish, which it carried to its favourite bough

to dispose of. It had, in this action, exactly the appearance of a

rocketing Pheasant or Grouse, that flies for some distance after

being heavily hit, and I take it that the bird has an instinctive

knowledge of the momentum that is necessary to carry it deep

enough into the water to enable it to reach the fish it goes for.

And this is very remarkable, for b3^ the laws of optics the fish

appears to be about one fourth nearer the surface than it actually

is ; but I cannot account for the upward flight before the dive in

any other way.


The Kingfisher apparently invariably washes itself after

taking a meal. It plunges two or three times in rapid succession

into the pool—generally within range of the splash made by a

light dripping cascade—and then sits and preens its feathers. I

imagine that the process of killing the fish by beating its head

against a bough or stone causes the feathers of the bird to be

splashed with slimy moisture from the fish, and so renders

ablution desirable or even necessaiy.



MY AVIARY AND BIRDS.


By the Rev. Thos. B. Gibson, A.M.


Perhaps no one ever began aviary-keeping for such a

reason as I did, sometime in the spring of 1889. Of course, as a

boy, I had the usual amount of successes and perhaps more than

the usual amount of failures, with bird-pets ; but these attempts

exercised no great influence upon me, and when I did start an

aviary, it came about unintentionally, in this way.


A Rosy-breasted Cockatoo had been sent to me, as a

present; but it was not long before its noise, and the necessity of

daily renewing its perches, drove me to the plan of constructing

an aviary round a tree in the garden, for its future residence.


Probably I should have taken the bird inside when the

hard weather came, but in October I was seized with a severe

attack of typhoid fever and, consequently, the Cockatoo had to

take his chance, though the winter was a severe one. Being well

looked after by a man about the place, he not only survived, but

improved in appearance. Since that time neither he nor any of

my birds has been taken inside, no matter what the weather



