KINGFISHER, 
111 
The eggs are usually laid in the middle of April, though 
an instance is known of the young having flown from the 
nest by this time ; and it is remarkable that such a brilliant 
bird should endure such a foul nesting-hole, or that the 
young ones can manage to keep themselves clean in such 
unsavoury surroundings. 
White's only allusion to this bird is in the chapter on 
the flight of birds ^ : " The kingfisher," he says, " darts along- 
like an arrow." 
More says that only a few pairs remain in the island 
during the summer, and in the winter hardly any are 
noticed, but they are sometimes plentiful in the autumn, 
when it is not unusual to see them fishing in the rock-pools 
along the shore. 
At Bembridge they have frequently been observed to 
station themselves at the furthest extremity of a ledge 
of rocks left bare at low water, and when the wind was 
blowing off shore they might be found sitting upon the 
seaweed, watching for their prey, or hovering over the salt 
water. He adds that he has more than once noticed a 
kingfisher, when repeatedly flushed, fly up into the top 
of a high elm, and he gives the authority of Rogers for 
saying that at Freshwater the birds sometimes nest in 
fissures in the caves. 
Our experience on the coast of the mainland agrees 
with More's, that autumn is the season when the bird is 
most to be seen. 
We do not consider that this bird is much persecuted, 
or decreasing in Hampshire at present, for though the 
fishing is so strictly preserved on most of the streams, the 
owners generally like the kingfishers as well, and the only 
' Letter xlii. to Barrington. Sell)<)rne. August 7th, 1 778. 
