i2o IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



fingerling trout have no love for this big, handsome, 

 energetic, and sometimes warrior-like bird. He is 

 extremely decorative as he perches on a limb high 

 over pond or river, watching for the gleam of fish 

 below to fall upon; but he is also extremely efficient 

 in getting the fish when he sees it. Still we could ill 

 spare the sight of him from our inland waterways, 

 and any close observation of a pair of kingfishers 

 through the season impresses you with their sturdy, 

 if sometimes contentious, independence. More than 

 once, along the winding Housatonic, I have noticed 

 that these birds apparently divide up the river into 

 definite reaches, each pair of birds taking a reach, 

 and thereafter maintaining it strictly to them- 

 selves and driving off with a great show of anger 

 and storming of wings and striking of heavy bill 

 any other kingfisher which comes fishing on their 

 posted sections. I have reason to think, too, that 

 they return in successive summers to the same 

 fishing-ground, for I have seen a fine old male for 

 at least three summers frequent the same tree, over- 

 hanging a shallow back-water just above the spot 

 where a trout-brook enters the river. 



There is a special lure, like that of nothing else, 

 about the shallow margin of a pond, where the 

 shadowed woods come down to throw their reflec- 

 tions over the still, dark water, reflections broken 

 by lily-pads and rushes, where pickerel-weed grows, 

 and water-lilies, and white arrowhead ; or about the 

 sandy margin of clean water lapping in, tiny wave 

 on wave; or about a quiet river wandering between 

 banks of clematis and balsam apple, dogwood, and 

 jewel-weed, and under groined green arches of 



