280 



KINGFISHER. 



the eggs may by accident be laid upon portions of these fish bones is 

 highly probable, as the floor is so thickly strewed with them, that no 

 vacant spot might be found, but they assuredly are not by design built 

 up into a nest. 



The hole is from two to four feet long, sloping upwards, narrow at 

 the entrance, but widening in the interior, in order perhaps to give the 

 birds room to turn, and for the same apparent reason the eggs are not 

 placed at the extremity. I am not a little sceptical as to its some- 

 times selecting the old hole of a water rat, which is the deadly enemy to 

 its eggs and young ; but it seems to indicate a dislike to the labour of 

 digging. It frequents the same hole for , a series of years, and will 

 not abandon it, though the nest be repeatedly plundered of the eggs or 

 young. The accumulation of cast bones in one of these old holes, has 

 perhaps, given origin to the notion of the nest being formed of them. 

 Small fish, such as banisticles, and minnows, seem to be their principal 

 food, but they also eat slugs, worms, and leeches. They will occasionally 

 suspend themselves on the wing, and dart on their prey like the osprey, 

 but more frequently they will sit patiently perched on a bough over 

 the water, and pouncing upon the small fish as they come near the sur- 

 face, seize them with their bill. 



It is rarely seen about the rocky rapid waters, where the dipper chiefly 

 resorts, but is frequently found about wooded streams, and fish-ponds, 

 inhabiting the shore of large salt water rivers, and estuaries. 



From having good opportunities of studying the habits of this bird, 

 I may remark, that it is not so very shy and solitary as it has been re- 

 presented, for it has more than once allowed me to approach within a 

 few yards of the bough on which it was perched. Mr. Jennings says 

 that it is " rarely, if ever, found near the habitations of man;" 1 a state- 

 ment at variance with my experience ; for, " on the contrary, I am in 

 the habit of seeing Kingfishers very often on the banks of a brook 

 which runs past my garden at Lee, in Kent, not a hundred yards from 

 the house in which I write this paragraph. A Kingfisher's nest was 

 found with young last summer on the bank of the same brook, within 

 gunshot of a whole row of houses/' 2 A similar instance is given by 

 one of Mr. Loudon's correspondents. Its obtaining its food from 

 streams and shallow ponds causes it, however, frequently to be seen in 

 secluded places.* 3 It flies with great rapidity, notwithstanding its 

 wings are very short ; but the motion of the wings are so very quick, 



1 Ornithologia, p. 172. 2 Mag. of Nat. Hist. ii. p. 457. 



3 Architecture of Birds. Chap, on Mining Birds, p. 55. 



