152 



3. On the Nidification of the Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida). 

 By John Gould, V.P., F.R.S., etc. t 



Ornithologists are divided in opinion as to whether the fish-bones 

 found in the cavity in which the Kingfisher deposits its eggs are to 

 be considered in the light of a nest, or as merely the castings from 

 the bird during the period of incubation. Some are disposed to con- 

 sider these bones as entirely the castings and feeces of the young 

 brood of the year before they quit the nest, and that, the same hole 

 being frequented for a succession of years, a great mass is at length 

 formed ; while others believe that they are deposited by the parents 

 as a platform for the eggs, constituting in fact a nest, — in which 

 latter view I fully concur ; and the following are my reasons for so 

 doing. 



On the 18th of the past month of April, during one of my fishing 

 excursions on the Thames, I saw a hole in a precipitous bank, which 

 I felt assured was a nesting-place of the Kingfisher ; and on passing 

 a spare top of my fly-rod to the extremity of the hole, a distance of 

 nearly three feet, I brought out some freshly-cast bones of fish, con- 

 vincing me that I was right in my surmise. The day following, the 

 9th of May, I again visited the spot with a spade, and, after removing 

 nearly 2 feet square of the turf, dug down to the nest without dis- 

 turbing the entrance-hole or the passage which led to it. Here I 

 found four eggs placed on the usual layer of fish-bones ; all of these 

 I removed with care, and then filled up the hole, beating the earth 

 down as hard as the bank itself, and replacing the sod on the top in 

 order that barge-horses passing to and fro might not put a foot in 

 the hole. A fortnight afterwards 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. The first opportunity I had of 

 again visiting this place, which was exactly twenty-one days from 

 the date of my former exploration and taking the eggs, I again passed 

 the top of my fly-rod up the hole, and found not only that the hole 

 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 of the hole, in order to preserve the eggs and nest 

 from damage during my again laying it open from above. On re- 

 moving the sod and digging down as before, I came upon the cotton 

 wool, and beneath it a well-formed nest of fish- bones, the size of a 

 small saucer, the walls of which were fully half an inch thick, 

 together with eight beautiful eggs and the old female herself. This 

 nest and eggs I removed with the greatest care ; and I now have the 

 pleasure of exhibiting it to the Society, before its transmission to the 

 British Museum, the proper resting-place of so interesting a bird's 

 nest. This mass of bones then, weighing 700 grains, had been cast 

 up and deposited by the bird or the bird and its mate, besides the 

 unusual number of eight eggs, in the short space of twenty-one days. 

 To gain anything like an approximate idea of the number of fish that 

 had been taken to form this mass, the skeleton of a minnow, their 

 usual food, must be carefully made and weighed ; and this I may 



