CHAPTER XIII. 



THE KINGFISHERS. 



Those past-masters in the art of beautiful literary inven- 

 tion, the ancient Greeks, could not fail to seize upon so radiant 

 a creation as the kingfisher to make of it the inspiration of 

 a charming romance. It is to this exceptional readiness of 

 theirs to grasp the essentials of beauty that we are indebted 

 for all those marvellous myths which have come down to us 

 as a never-ending legacy of symmetry and joy. The story of 

 Alcyone or Halcyone and Ceyx is one of these. Ceyx, the 

 husband, is drowned when on his way to consult an oracle. 

 Halcyone, informed by the gods of his fate, throws herself 

 into the sea. Such affection is rewarded by a reincarnation 

 in the form of a pair of Halcyons or kingfishers. Then the 

 story proceeds, with a blissful ignorance of the true facts of 

 natural history, to tell how the halcyons made their nest on the 

 water during the seven days before the winter solstice and 

 the seven after, how during that time, owing to the interven- 

 tion of the higher powers, there ruled the "Halcyon days," 

 the dies halcyonii, during which the birds could hatch out 

 their floating young in perfect safety. That the kingfisher 

 nests in the ground, that it nests in the spring, and it has 

 nothing whatever to do with calm weather may affect our 

 faith in the exactitude of the old Greek writers, but does not 

 lesson our appreciation of their literary charm. And besides, 

 there are halcyon days still in store. 



Let us take a summer evening's walk anywhere into the 

 country from Shanghai, away from "the madding, crowd." 

 There along the quiet banks of one or other of the creeks we 

 are sure to come upon the common kingfisher, Alcedo Ben- 

 galensis, as some writers call him, Alcedo Ispida as he is 

 more generally known in Europe. The first sign of his pre- 

 sence will probably come from his sharp little cry as he starts 

 from some twig on which within a few feet of the would-be 

 observer he had sat unseen. That little fact marks the won- 

 derful manner in which Nature has arranged that her most 

 gorgeous colours shall so mingle with their surroundings as 

 to be unnoticed. But having seen our little friend go, we 

 may, perhaps, see him alight again, and then if our tactics 

 are those of an old campaigner, there should be little diffi- 



