STRANGE BED-FELLOWS 



fisher adornments, I had to hustle to get some pictures, 

 before it was too late in the season. Ned was a good 

 fellow to consult on such important business, and he 

 remembered two places where he had seen kingfisher 

 burrows, so we rounded them up at once. The first 

 was in a pasture, where road makers had dug out 

 gravel, and left a steep bank. There was no burrow 

 there this year, though later in the season I saw where 

 the pair had nested, in a bank about half a mile further 

 on, by the roadside. The other location was near the 

 pond, where the railroad had been cut through. It 

 did not take long to discover two round clear-cut holes 

 of just the right size — kingfishers' work without a 

 doubt. One did not go in very far, as the birds had 

 struck rock. So they had tried again a few feet away, 

 and this one was evidently complete, for it went in 

 further than I could reach. No birds were in sight, 

 yet I felt sure it was a new burrow. 



It was so late in the season that I feared the young 

 had already flown. So the next day, the twenty-sixth 

 of June, as I was about to drive by this spot with my 

 wife and baby girl, I took along a shovel, and hitched 

 the horse by the roadside at the nearest point to the 

 burrow, telling my wife — with some misgivings — that 

 it would only take me a few minutes to dig in far 

 enough to find out whether the nest was occupied, and 

 if it was I would take the photographs later. I took 

 the camera along, though, to photograph the site be- 

 fore I disfigured it. After taking the picture, I started 



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