RARE PICTURES AFIELD 179 



Another picture wliicli I prize highly is that 

 of a male kingfisher, whose long, heavy beak 

 from base to tip is scarred and worn into tiny pits 

 from contact with the gravel and small stones in 

 the clay backwall of a gravel pit, in which he made 

 his tunnel. I have always greatly appreciated an 

 opportunity I had to secure a picture of a pair of 

 young of this nest, when they were almost full- 

 grown, fully feathered, and debating the question 

 of taking wing, both of them sitting side by side 

 in the door of their tunnel, wanting to go, yet 

 afraid to spread their wings and launch them- 

 selves into the big world. 



