^ 



426 BELTED KINGFISHER. 



during the night in late spring and eariy summer. It is one of our best known birds 

 as it is found in all suitable localities throughout North America, but it is nowhere 

 really common. Its breeding range extends from Texas and Florida north to the Arctic 

 regions, and in winter it is found south to Panama. Where open w^aters occur it some- 

 times braves the severe- winter's cold of the northern States. These winter sojourners 

 are doubtless birds from the high North being more robust and therefore better adapted 

 to withstand the vicissitudes of a northern winter, than those breeding in the locality. 

 In south-western Missouri it was not common in winter, but in Texas it was found on 

 all strea^ms and rivers during the cold season. I observed the bird throughout the year 

 on the Comal, Guadeloupe and the upper Colorado and on the Brazos in Texas, and in 

 winter it w^as not at all rare on the picturesque banks of the Buffalo Bayou near 

 Houston. I saw the bird in April on the Chattahoochee and Suwanee and on the upper 

 St. Johns in Florida. It is a regular summer sojourner on the Spring River and Center 

 Creek in Lawrence Co. Mo., and about twenty years ago it was a familiar summer 

 sojourner on the Deplaines and Calumet River in the northern part of Illinois. In Wis- 

 consin I observed it in the days of my youth on the beautiful pituresque banks of the 

 Sheboygan and Pigeon Rivers. Clear streams and brooks, bordered with perpendicular 

 banks, and low shores edged with bushes and trees, are the Kingfisher's favorite haunts. 

 Where the water is muddy and dark it does not settle. I found it most frequently near 

 mill-ponds and rapidly flowing brooks, where shallow places alternated with quiet and 

 deep spots. 



As the Kingfisher is found on all creeks, rivers and ponds in suitable localities, it 

 is often asserted to be a common bird. This is, however, not the case.. Being a large, 

 noisy and very conspicuous inhabitant near clear water, and occurring often in the 

 immediate neighborhood of man, it is familiar to almost everyone, but its hunting 

 grounds are very large, and we may often go for miles to find another individual and this 

 is usually the female. Being exceedingly unsocial it never tolerates another individual of 

 its own kind in its hunting grounds. Only during the nesting time both sexes congre- 

 gate, but as soon as the young are able to shift for themselves they are mercilessly driven 

 away. In spite of its very jealous and quarrelsome disposition the Kingfisher is a great 

 ornament of its haunts. It is always found where large dry limbs hang over the water, 

 or where snags or rocks project from the wet element. Often the banks are edged with 

 the beautiful red cardinal flower {Lobelia carditialis), the blue lobelia {Lobelia syphilitica), 

 the fringed and closed gentians {Gentiana crinita and G. Andrewsii), the spotted balsam 

 or touch-me-not {Impatiens fulva), the shell flower {Chelone barbata), ferns, etc. 

 "Every bird," writes Major Chas. Bendire, "seems to have several favorite perches along 

 its range, each perhaps quite a distance away from the next, to which it flies from time 

 to time, generally uttering its well-known shrill rattle in doing so. It is a sedentarj' 

 bird, but ever watchful and rather shy, sitting frequently for an hour at a time in the 

 same position, occasionally moving its head back and forward, watching for its prey 

 as a cat does for a mouse. In such a posture the Kingfisher is one of the most charm- 

 ing features of brook and pool. Should an unfortunate fish come within sight at such 

 times, our lone fisher is at once alert enough, craning its neck and looking into the 

 water, until the proper moment arrives for it to plunge downward, head first, com- 



