THE COMMON KINGFISHER. 283 
ie crabs, shrimps, and sandhoppers that are found upon the edge of 
the tide. 
The nest of the Kingfisher is always made in some convenient bank, at 
the extremity of a hole which has previously been occupied and deserted by 
the water-rat or other mining quadrupeds, and been enlarged and 
adapted for use by. the Kingfisher. Now and then the nest of this bird has 
been found built in the deserted hole of a rabbit warren. It is always found 
that the tunnel slopes gently upward, and that the bird has shaped the 
extremity into a globular form in order to contain the parent bird, the nest, 
and eggs. Sometimes the nest is placed in the natural crevices formed by 
the roots of trees growing on the water’s edge. In many cases it is easily 
detected, for the birds are very careless about the concealment of their nest 
even before the eggs are hatched; and after the young have made their 
appearance in the world, they are so clamorous for food and so insatiable in 
their appetite, that their noisy voices can be heard for some distance, and 
indicate with great precision the direction of their home. 
Some writers say that the interior of the burrow is kept so scrupulously 
clean that it is free from all evil scents. My own experience, however, 
contradicts this assertion, for after introducing the hand into a Kingfisher’s 
nest, I have always found it imbued with so offensive an odour that I was 
fain to wash it repeatedly in the nearest stream. As the Kingfisher is so 
piscatorial in its habits it would naturally be imagined that the nest would 
be placed in close connection with the stream from which the parent birds 
obtained their daily food. Ihave, however, several times seen a Kingfisher’s 
nest, and obtained the eggs, in spots that were not within half a mile of a 
fish-inhabited stream. The bird is greatly attached to the burrow in which 
it has once made its nest, and will make use of the same spot year after year, 
even though the nest be plundered and the eggs stolen. 
The eggs are from six to eight in number, rather globular in form, and of 
an exquisitely delicate pink in colour while fresh, changing to a pearly 
white when the contents are removed. As soon as the young are able to 
exert themselves, they perch on a neighbouring twig or other convenient 
resting-place, and squall incessantly for food. In a very short time they 
assume their yearling plumage, which is very nearly the same as that of the 
adult bird, and soon learn to fish on their own account. 
The nest of the Kingfisher has long been known to consist of the bones, 
scales, and other indigestible portions of the food, which are ejected from the 
mouth by “castings,” like those of the hawk or owl; but until Mr. Gould 
recently procured a perfect Kingfisher’s nest, its shape and the manner of 
construction were entirely unknown. His account of its discovery, and the 
ingenious manner in which it was procured, is so interesting that it must be 
given in his own words. 
“ Ornithologists are divided in opinion as to whether the fish-bones found 
in the cavity in which the Kingfisher deposits its eggs are to be considered 
in the light of a nest, or as merely the castings from the bird during the period 
of incubation. Some are disposed to consider these bones as entirely the 
castings and feeces of the young brood of the year before they quit the nest, 
and that the same hole being frequented for a succession of years, a great 
mass is at length formed; while others believe that they are deposited by 
the parents as a platform for the eggs, constituting, in fact, a nest; in which 
latter view I fully concur, and the following are my reason for so doing :— 
“On the 18th of the past month of April, during one of my fishing excur- 
sions on the Thames, I saw a hole in a precipitous bank, which I felt sure 
was a nesting-place of the Kingfisher, and on passing a Spare top of my fly- 
rod to the extremity of the hole, a distance of nearly three feet, I] brought 
