248 An English Stream. 



Welcome signal ! how they raise 

 Their open beaks for morsels new ! 



Then the good repast enjoyed, 

 He returns where late he flew. 



Sits upon his perch again, 



Like a figure in a dream, 

 Brilliant hues of sun and rain 



Make a sunlight on the stream. 



King of fishes, truly, thou, 



Patient as was Izaak old,* 

 But have you ever in your heart 



A tender pity all untold ? 



The poetical idea of the kingfisher making " a sun- 

 light " or a rainbow on the water in a leaf-shaded 

 place has not perhaps an entirely poetical origin. We 

 read in a good authority — 



" The kingfisher has frequently been observed hover- 

 ing on outstretched wings over the water, and some 

 writers believe that this is done with a view of attracting 

 the fish to the surface. Whether this is the case is 

 not yet ascertained, but it is well known that when a 

 light is thrown at night on the water, the inhabitants 

 of the ' finny deep ' flock in numbers to discover the 

 cause of the unwonted brilliancy." 



And we have ourselves often sat in a shady spot by 

 the border of a brook thickly overhung with foliage, 

 and noticed that where a small ray of sunlight pene- 

 trated and struck the water, there the small fish rose 

 to bask in it. The kingfisher perhaps makes an 

 artificial sunlight which helps him. 



In Wood's "Natural History" it is said that the 

 kingfisher is fond of music. On playing an organ in 

 a room facing a river, it was found that several of the 



* Izaak Walton, author of " The Compleat Angler," born in London 

 1593, and died in 1683. 



