﻿not is uncertain) from proceeding, by removing earth which carried away part of it after it 

 had reached some two feet of depth. In order to ascertain whether the bird was sitting in 

 the occupied burrow, I turned the sunlight into it with a small looking-glass, which showed 

 the whole interior, and the bird at the end facing us, with its brilliant colours gleaming 

 vividlv, and its eyes like two beads of flame. Unwilling to disturb it, I never continued this 

 more than for a second or two, and never succeeded in finding the bird absent on several 

 subsequent occasions. Last week, however, I found that she had shifted her position, 

 sitting sideways on the enlarged end of the hole, and with the heads of two or three young 

 ones peeping out from under her wings. They appeared not much to like the investigation, 

 and nestled back into the farthest corner. An opera glass brought the group almost under 

 microscopic observation. The mouth of the hole is 2^ inches wide, by 4 inches high, and the 

 depth '2 feet 3 inches. A few small fish bones could be seen under the bird, but none in the 

 passage. The circumstances already show that the birds have not appropriated the hole of a 

 rat or any other creature, but have done all the work themselves. I subsequently found 

 another nest in a bank overhanging the stream, and from this, which was a yard and a half 

 deep, two eggs were taken with a small muslin net set on wire, some of the bone forming 

 the nest being extracted with the eggs. The bird, which was driven off by the proceeding, 

 did not, nevertheless, desert, and the same process of illumination showed her sitting on the 

 remaining eggs. I have considerable doubt whether the hole is not always made by the 

 bird itself, though, from the usual situation in the neighbourhood of rats holes, it is often 

 easily mistaken for one." 



Xo account of the Kingfisher would be complete without Mr. Gould's well-known 

 anecdote, which is here subjoined : — 



" On the 18th April, 1859, during one of my fishing excursions on the Thames, I saw a 

 hole in a precipitous bank, which 1 felt assured was the nesting place of a Kingfisher ; and 

 on passing a spare top of my fly-rod to the extremity, a distance of nearly three feet, I 

 brought out some freshly cast bones of a fish, convincing me that I was right in my 

 surmise. The day following I again visited the spot with a spade, and after removing 

 nearly two feet square of the turf, dug down to the nest without disturbing the passage 

 which led to it. Here I found four eggs placed on the usual layer of fish bones. These I 

 removed with care, and then replaced the earth, beating it down as hard as the bank 

 itself, and restored the turfy sod. A fortnight after the bird was seen to leave the hole 

 again, and my suspicion was awakened that she had taken to her old breeding quarters a 

 second time. I again visited the place on the twenty first clay from the date of my former 

 exploration, and upon passing the top of my fly rod up the hole, found not only that it was 

 of the former length, but that the female was within. I then took a large mass of cotton wool 

 from my collecting box, and stuffed it to the extremity in order to preserve the eggs from 

 damage during my again laying it open from above. On removing the sod and digging 

 down as before I came to the cotton wool, and beneath it was formed nest of fish bones, the 

 Bize of a small saucer, the walls of which were fully half an inch thick, together with 

 eight beautiful translucent pale pinky-white eggs, and the old female herself. This nest I 

 removed with the greatest care; and it is now deposited in the proper resting place for so 

 interesting an object, the British Museum. This mass of bones, then weighing 700 grains, 

 had been cast up and deposited by the bird and its mate in the short space of twenty one 

 days. Ornithologists arc divided in opinion, as to whether the fish bones are to be 

 considered in the light of a nest. Some are disposed to believe them to be the castings and 

 fajces of the young brood of the year, and that the same hole being frequented for a 

 succession of years a great mass is at length formed; while others suppose that they are 

 deposited bj the parents as a platform for the eggs, constituting in facta nest: and I think, 

 from what 1 have adduced, we may fairly conclude this is the case ; in fact, nothing could be 

 better adapted to defend the eggs from the damp earth." 



l>r. Jerdon mentions that the Akedo bengatensis is subject to variety, and occasionally 



