264 



VERTEBRATES. 



Common Kingfisher, 



Crested Eingfieher. 



overhanging the water, from which spot it watches foi the unsus- 

 pecting fish beneath. After a fish is caught, the bird kills it by 

 beating it several 

 times against its 

 resting-place, and 

 then swallows it, 

 head foremost. 



It lays its 

 eggs in holes bored 

 in the banks of 

 rivers or ponds, 

 and appears to 

 build no nest. A 

 pair of kingfishers, for two successive years, inhabited a bank of 

 a very small stream, little more than a drain, at Little Hinton, 

 Wiltshire, England, where no fish lived, nor were there any to be 

 found within a considerable distance. The eggs are from four to 

 seven in number, of a pearly whiteness, and remarkably globular 

 in shape. 



The Bee-eater is common on the Continent of Europe. 

 In appearance it is not very unlike the kingfisher, both in shape 



and its brilliant colors. It has 

 long been celebrated for the 

 havoc it causes among the inha^ 

 bitants of the hive, although it 

 does not restrict itself to those 

 insects, but pursues wasps, but- 

 terflies, etc., on the wing, with 

 Be»'Eater. great activity. Like the king- 



fisher, it lays its eggs in holes 

 bored in banks. The eggs are white, and from four to seven in 

 number. Its length is eleven inches 



