In the Neighbourhood of Salisbury. 



311 



twenty or thirty years, several dead Kingfishers were picked up in 

 the parish. They appeared to have been starved out of their usual 

 feeding-places, the waters being so swollen and turbid that it was 

 impossible for them to find the small fry on which they feed, or even 

 to know where to look for them. But it was a curious effect for a 

 water-bird to be killed by an excess of water, affording a practical 

 illustration of the old adage, that " you can have too much of a good 

 thing." I once, in our water-meadows, noticed a Kingfisher securing 

 his prey in a very adroit manner. I observed a small bird poising 

 itself in the air some ten or twelve feet from the ground, just in the 

 same way that you. may see a Kestrel hovering, and then descending 

 perpendicularly apparently to the earth, as though it were attacking 

 some enemy or prey immediately beneath it. This action it kept 

 on repeating, ascending to the same height again and again, and 

 continuing to make the same bold and downward swoops. On 

 creeping up to a hedge, however, from which I could watch the 

 bird better I saw at once it was a Kingfisher taking splendid headers 

 into a stream, which was hidden from me before, and there being no 

 kind of shrub or perch from which it could watch its finny prey, it 

 was obliged to adopt the method above described,both to see and secure 

 the minnows below it. Its actions reminded me of the bold swoops 

 the Gannet makes, as I have observed them off Portland, as they 

 dash headlong with closed pinions into the surging sea beneath them. 



HlRUNDINIDJE. 



Hirundo Rustica. " The Swallow." Every one knows and loves 

 " the Swallow twittering in its straw-built shed/'' The harbinger 

 of summer, and a bird against which not one single bad word can 

 be said ; it is, surely, the most harmless and useful of all our summer 

 visitants, and should be protected by every one. A pure white 

 swallow once flew down one of the chimneys at my old home at 

 Wokingham, but I was too young then to understand the rarity of 

 it, and it was not preserved. 



Hirundo Urbica. " The Martin." Makes its appearance with 

 us rather earlier than the last species, and is very numerous. There 

 is one favorite house in the parish where you may at times count 



