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forming it. 



polished surface, and very fragile in texture; sometimes the shell is marked by minute limy 

 excrescences at the larger end. The labour of boring a cavity is often greatly augmented by 

 natural impediments. If, after drilling through the hard external surface, the bird finds the 

 inner wood too hard for its tools, it at once abandons the spot and sounds the tree in another 

 place. I have counted half a dozen or more of these abortive borings on a single tree, in addition 

 to the finished one, affording evidence of indomitable perseverance on the part of the bird, and a 

 determination not to forsake a tree which it had instinctively selected as a suitable one for its 

 operations. In two instances, however, I have known the Kingfisher to adopt an existing hollow 

 in a partially decayed kahikatea tree, dispensing altogether with the labour of boring and 



The nestling of this species is a very curious object. On bursting from the shell, it 

 presents the following appearance: the abdomen, as in most young birds, is perfectly bare; on 

 the other parts each feather is encased in a sharp-pointed sheath of a greyish colour, closely 



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studded, and bristling like the quills of a porcupine. Before the young bird quits the nest, the 

 sheathings gradually burst, exposing the true feathers in all their brilliancy ; vestiges, however, 

 of this spiny condition adhere to the fore part of the head for several days after the birds have 

 quitted their cell. On being alarmed or excited, the young Kingfisher utters a prolonged rasping 

 cry, sounding very harsh to the ear. The parent birds are very fierce when their nest is molested, 

 darting into the face of the intruder, and fiying off again, with a loud, quickly repeated note of 

 alarm. 



In the Canterbury Province, where timber is scarce, it more frequently burrows a hole in 

 a bank, and often near the sea-beach. On examining one of these holes, Mr. Potts observed that 



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the bottom inclined slightly upwards from the entrance, and that the eggs were deposited on a 

 layer of crustacean remains about a foot from the outside. The exuvise within the nest consisted 

 of mud, with numerous remains of Crustacea and the wings of coleopterous insects. 



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