146 AN INTKBPID KINGFISHER 



lady who tries to reconcile affection for the race of Gray- 

 malkin with sedulous care for birds. Hard it is to keep 

 the interests of her favourites from clashing. At the foot 

 of this lady's lawn runs the Lambourne, its nearer bank 

 bound by a rough stone scarp, wherein last spring a pair 

 of kingiishers built their nest of the customary unsavoury 

 materials, laid their lovely alabaster eggs, and hatched a 

 thriving brood of princelets. It were difficult to say 

 which took the greater interest in the flittings to and fro 

 of the parent birds, the lady or her cat. Sitting one day 

 at her writing-table the former saw the latter (pace Dr. 

 Johnson !) pass the window with something blue in its 

 mouth. 'A kingfisher!' flashed the first thought, for 

 there is no tint in British wild nature to rival that of ' the 

 sea-blue bird of March.' ' Rescue ! ' was the word ; but the 

 lady reached the front door only in time to see the cat 

 half way up a magnolia trained against the house, whence 

 the creature made its way into the open window of a 

 chamber where her kittens were harboured. To reach the 

 room took the rescue party but a minute or two; it 

 arrived in time to witness a spirited little drama. The 

 cat had laid her quarry unharmed before four pairs of 

 round admiring eyes, evidently intending to show her off- 

 springs how living game was to be dealt with. But beneath 

 the tawny vest of Halcyon there beats a stout heart ; life 

 and liberty were dear to the brave bird, which was 

 standing at bay, armed with a single weapon against the 

 captor's teeth and claws — a beak, to wit, in proportion to 

 its diminutive stature as a two-handed sword to a fifteenth- 

 century man-at-arms. Whether the cat was really per- 

 plexed and frightened by the little tartar she had caught, 

 or whether she was merely posing before her kittens, 



