152 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



be any comparison between the stuffed dummy and the 

 living bird flashing backwards and forwards between the 

 banks of its native stream. 



Yet another enemy there is — the person or persons 

 who own the fishing rights of the stream, and who are not 

 ashamed to confess themselves enemies of every King- 

 fisher in the district, just because the bird is a fisherman 

 too, and takes his share of the good things under the 

 water. 



Let us hope that as the love of wild Nature becomes, 

 as it certainly is becoming, more widespread, the King- 

 fisher will not only be spared, but will be jealously 

 protected, and will be welcomed to every waterway where 

 he shows a disposition to take up his quarters. Already 

 there are laws and rules framed to safeguard him, and 

 on some rivers he is more commonly to be seen than he 

 was five-and-twenty years ago. 



One enemy that I have not mentioned cannot be 

 guarded against, unfortunately. This is King Frost. 

 More fatal than the shot gun of the mischievous fellow 

 who wants to " bag " the bright-feathered bird, is the 

 silent pitiless grip of winter, which no swiftness of 

 flight can elude. When once the surface of brook or 

 river is frozen over, the Kingfisher's food-supply is 

 cut off. Then, unless he can make his way down to 

 open water — and it may be too far for him to travel — 

 he dies. 



Richard Jefferies, that close student of the life of the 

 countryside, tells of an instance, in one of his books. 

 " I recollect," he says, " walking by a brook, and seeing 

 the blue plumage of a Kingfisher perched on a bush. I 

 swung my gun round, ready to shoot as soon as he should 

 fly [Jefferies was somewhat too ready to use that gun of 



