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"Sir, — Though the subject of the Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) is somewhat stale, yet, in consequence of the 

 remarks which I have just read in the October Quarterly on 'Homes Without Hands,' I send you the following 

 notes, made this spring, in order to set at rest, if possible, a mistake regarding the breeding of this bird. 

 Modern writers on the Kingfisher are hardly more free from error than even Ovid or Pliny, The bird is a 

 true miner, and makes a nest of fish bones: but, as no rule is without an exception, where it cannot find it 

 suitable bank to bore in, it has been known to nidificate in abnormal situations ; and when abundance of proper 

 fish are not to be caught, it is obliged to do without bones. 



"From many years' constant watching, I can exactly tell the probable position of the hole, and the day 

 it will be begun. Accordingly, on Thursday, March 29, I sent two witnesses to a particular spot on the river 

 Ouse, S. Neots, Huntingdonshire. They observed that there was on that day positively no hole of any kind, 

 or vestige of a hole, in that bank. 



"On Easter Monday, April 2, I sent a keeper to the place. He reported the hole as begun. On the same 

 day I went in a boat, and, putting a reed up, found it by actual measurement about fifteen inches deep, the 

 moulds being quite fresh outside. Droppings of the bird (which was now seen constantly leaving the hole) 

 were visible in two places. There was also a shallow hole a little to the left of the above-mentioned one. This 

 was a failure — either from caprice or some other cause, abandoned. We observe the same in Woodpeckers, 

 which will sometimes bore in three or four places before they get one to their liking — a circumstance I parti- 

 cularly remarked in a pair of the Greater Spotted Woodpeckers (P. major) last spring. Between March 29 

 and April 2, the Kingfisher had made two holes. I thought it best now to leave the place, only receiving from 

 the keeper each morning a report, as he went by in his boat, that the bird was going on. 



"Saturday, April 7. — I made a memorandum: 'I again observe fresh moulds, but not, as we consider, 

 to-day's, but yesterday's; hence I suppose the hole to be nearly finished, if not quite.' Here I shoidd say, 

 after taking these nests constantly for nearly thirty years, I find twenty-one days is the correct time from the 

 commencement of the excavation to the end of laying seven eggs. I never had the luck to find eight; Mr. 

 Gould, however, informs me he once did. 



"Saturday, April 21. — Opened the hole, situated in the perpendicular bank, to keep off water-rats. 

 Found, by measurement, the entrance was twelve inches froni the surface of the ground, and about five feet 

 from the water. The length of the ascending gallery was eight and a half inches, and the oval chamber six 

 inches in diameter moi - e. The top of the chamber was nine inches from the surface of the ground. It con- 

 tained the usual nest of fish-bones, which was one and a half inches deep ; and the same with the seven fresh 

 eggs are now before me, with two other nests from the same locality. The bird flew off after the first dig, 

 which I commonly make so as to cover up the hole again without disturbance if the full number of eggs has 

 not been laid. 



"There was no excrement in the chamber, but much just outside in the gallery. The size of the chamber 

 is-just sufficient for the owners to turn round pleasantly. When the young birds (•which I have seen in every 

 stage) have been some time in the nest, of course the hole gets very foul. 



"Here, then, is a case capable of being attested by two or three witnesses step by step, and concerning 

 which there can be no doubt, where the Kingfisher is proved to have made its own hole. I have known it, 

 when driven from one bank by floods, to revert to an old hole of its own making in a previous year; but never 

 has there been an instance of its taking up with the abode of its most deadly enemy, the water- rat. It is hard 

 to prove a negative, but it is certainly a most unlikely thing for a Kingfisher to enter a rat-hole. No one who 

 has seen the eggs of this species in situ as often as I have, can deny that the fish-bones are placed with the 

 design of making a nest. "Geo. Dawson Eowley, 5, Peel Terrace, Brighton, Oct. 23." 



In the Field newspaper for May 15th, 1869, the following interesting communication 

 is made by some one writing under the soubriquet of " Hants" : — 



" I fancy that the opportunity of seeing a Kingfisher on its nest is so rare an 

 occurence that you may think it worth reporting. One has built, if I may use the term, 

 near my house, under circumstances so favourable to observation, that the only drawback 

 to the indulgence of curiosity is the fear of scaring the birds and the risk of attracting 

 marauders ; and I only regret that the fact was not discovered sufficiently early to arrange 

 a closer watch on their proceedings. Last autumn I had occasion to require some hundreds 

 of cubic yards of soil for a river embankment, and these were obtained close to the stream 

 by an excavation leaving a perpendicular side some 12 feet high. About seven weeks ago 

 I noticed two holes about half-way up this side, freshly made, and evidently scooped out by 

 birds, the action of the claws leaving a faint ridge on the floor of the burrow. Being 

 occupied with other matters, it only struck me as very early for Sand-Martins, and I went 

 my way. My schoolboys coming home, with keener interest in nests, saw, however, about 

 a fortnight later, a Kingfisher fly out of the hollow, and applying to the principal burrow 

 the test of the nose, indicated by McGillivray, found 1 confirmation strong' in the 

 'ancient and fish-like smell.' The second burrow, a few feet distant, was evidently a 

 beginning, frustrated by workmen, who have deterred the birds (whether the same pair or 



