KINGFISHERS 107 
often seen the bird drop into the water and come out 
again without apparently having caught anything. It 
is of course possible that it may have seized some 
minute water insect and swallowed it at a gulp. Mr. 
Harper’s kingfisher consumed in a whole day the 
equivalent of twenty-one minnows. That bird was in 
captivity, and did not take so much exercise as a free 
bird would; hence we may double the allowance of 
the wild kingfisher. If then it catches a fish every 
time it dives, forty plunges would suffice to procure 
it a day’s food. 
Every one who has observed the habits of this king- 
fisher knows that it dives very many more than forty 
times in the course of the day. It seems to hunt from 
morning to night. The birds are of course not always 
on the move. They frequently rest. One or two pied 
kingfishers are usually to be seen sitting on the telegraph 
wires which run across the River Cooum parallel with 
the Mount Road, Madras. 
Kingfishers nest at the end of holes excavated in 
river banks. During the breeding season, which com- 
mences in December, numbers of nests, or rather the 
entrances thereto, may be seen in the banks of the 
Adyar River. The excavations are six feet or more 
in length, so that it is impossible to reach a kingfisher’s 
nest without extensive digging. Nor are the passages 
which lead to the nest straight. But the nest is not 
much to look at. The white eggs are laid on the bare 
earth, and are mixed with fish-bones cast up by the 
birds. 
Kingfishers, like most birds, object to having their 
