BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
23 
familiar to every one, who is regarded as first 
amonof " lovers of nature," when he relates that he 
invariably carried a gun when out of doors mainly 
with the object of shooting any kingfisher he might 
chance to see, as the dead bird always formed an 
acceptable present to the cottager's wife, who 
would get it stuffed and keep it as an ornament on 
her parlour mantelshelf ! 
Let us quit this melancholy subject. If our 
legislators will not alter, or supplement, the Act for 
the Protection of Wild Birds, which most people 
regard as a farce, and if educated gentlemen, 
" lovers of nature," and writers of books about its 
beauties, are as greedy of dead kingfishers as the 
small-brained detestable cockney sportsman I have 
mentioned, it is clear that the life of this species 
in England must shortly come to an end. But how 
pitiful to think of it ! There is only one emerald 
in nature, although many green stones, and in 
Britain only one kingfisher. 
Where the stream broadened and mixed with 
the river there existed a dense and extensive rush- 
bed — an island of rushes separated by a deep 
channel some twelve or fourteen yards in width 
from the bank. This was a favourite nesting-place 
of the reed- warblers ; occasionally as many as a 
dozen birds could be heard singing at the same 
