332 KINGFISHER. Class II. 



In after times, these words expressed any 

 season of prosperity : these were the Halcyon 

 days of the poets, the brief tranquillity, the 

 septem placidi dies of human life. 



The poets also made it a bird of song : Vir- 

 gil seems to place it in the same rank with the 

 Linnet : 



Littoraque Halcyonem resonant, et Acanthida dumi. 



Georg. III. 338. 



And Silius Italicus celebrates its music, and its 

 floating nest : 



Cum sonat Halcyone cantu, nidosque natantes 

 Immota gestat sopitis fluctibus unda. 



Lib. XIV. 275. 



But we suspect that these writers have trans- 

 ferred to our species the harmony that belongs 

 to the vocal alcedoof the philosopher, aai^h 



qSsyyzrou, xaSt&vscra. ziti twv SovctKwy, which Wa$ 



vocal, and perched upon reeds. Aristotle says, 

 it is the lest of the two, but that both of them 

 have a cyanean back.f Belon labors to prove 

 the vocal alcedo to be the rousserole, or the 

 greater reed sparrow,^ a bird found in France 



* Hist. an. SQ2. 



•f* NuJrov xvaveov, the color of the cyanus, or lapis lazuli. 



X Le Rousserolle, Belon av. 221. Le Roucherolle, Brisson 



