THE



49



Avicultural Magazine,


BEING THE JOURNAL OF

THE AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



Third Series .— Vol. VI.—No. 2. —All rights reserved. DECEMBER, 1914.



THE KINGFISHER.


Alcedo ispida.


By Hubert D. Astley.


Looking out of one of my bedroom windows one morning in

October I saw the brilliant blue of a Kingfisher as he flashed over

the moat and passed beneath the arch of the old stone bridge.

That was my view of him on the south side of the room, where

two windows with their sashes of Queen Anne period, one on either

side of the chimney and fire place, look out on a wide prospect

towards a wooded hill in the middle distance on the left hand, and

to the Black Mountains in the further distance on the right.


And my next sight of him was in the big cedar-tree, planted

by Wordsworth and Southey, which spreads its blue-green foliage in

front of the other two windows on the west side of the room,

stretching its red-brown branches over the broader part of the moat.

Let me mention that I can lie in bed and see by night the moon

above the wooded hill, which from that point of view forms a back¬

ground to the cedar, gleaming through the branches ; indeed on a

winter’s morning I have been able from one of the south windows

to look at the sun rising in the E.S.E., and turning round, to see the

full moon setting in the N.W., just as if she were thinking, “ here

he comes, my light is no longer needed.” Does some impatient

aviculturist break in with “ what twaddle, go on about the King¬

fisher, bother the moon ! ”


Well I will! The Kingfisher in question was perched within



