110 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
colouring, stiff attitude, and somewhat ventriloquial voice 
deceived the non-spectator. In "John Keble's Parishes" 
she says, " the cuckoo's mate squeaks all round the woods, 
with his head on one side, just as the cuckoo comes." 
Wise ^ mentions that Dr. Rake both heard and saw 
one as late as December 5th, 1861. 
Mr. Victor Willett procured a specimen from St. 
Catherine's Lighthouse, in the Isle of Wight, on August 
19th, 1892. 
Fa m I L V — A lcedinid(B. 
Genus — Alcedo. 
112. Alcedo ispida. Kingfisher. 
"a halcyon sits 
Patient — the secret splendour of the brooks." 
Tennyson^ s Progress of Spring'' 
Resident and universally distributed throughout the 
county and the Isle of Wight. 
There are few reaches of the Avon, Test, and Itchin 
that are without their pair of kingfishers, nor are they 
absent from the smaller streams of the New Forest, nesting 
in the banks of the more secluded parts of their course. 
On the Upper Test they may be called plentiful, though 
never more than one pair is found on one stretch of the 
stream, each pair keeping to its own territory, conscious 
that the supply of food there is not sufficient for more than 
themselves. 
They often nest in chalk-pits, and gravel or sand-pits 
at a distance from water, but their favourite situation is in 
the bank overhanging a stream, the same situation being 
resorted to annually for nesting. 
' "New Forest. ■ 
