THE KINGFISHER. 



171 



There are people who imagine that the brilliancy 

 of the plumage of birds has some connexion with a 

 tropical sun. Here, however, in our own native 

 bird, we have an instance that the glowing sun of 

 the tropics is not required to produce a splendid 

 plumage. The hottest parts of Asia and of Africa 

 do not present us with an azure more rich and lovely 

 than that which adorns the back of this charming 

 little bird ; while throughout the whole of America, 

 from Hudson's Bay to Tierra del Fuego, there has 

 not been discovered a kingfisher with colours half so 

 rich or beautiful. Asia, Africa, and America offer 

 to the naturalist a vast abundance of different species 

 of the kingfisher. Europe presents only one ; but 

 that one is like a gem of the finest lustre. 



I feel sorry to add that our kingfisher is becoming 

 scarcer every year in this part of Yorkshire. The 

 proprietors of museums are always anxious to add 

 it to their collections, and offer a tempting price for 

 it. On the canals, too, it undergoes a continual 

 persecution : not a waterman steers his boat along 

 them, but who has his gun ready to procure the king- 

 fisher. If I may judge from the disappearance of the 

 kite, the raven, and the buzzard from this part of the 

 country, I should say that the day is at no great 

 distance when the kingfisher will be seen no more in 

 this neighbourhood, where once it was so plentiful, 

 and its appearance so grateful to every lover of ani- 

 mated nature. Where, in fine, its singular mode of 

 procuring food, contrasted with its anatomy, causes 

 astonishment in the beholder, and cannot fail to 

 convince him that modern ornithologists were ig- 



