THE KINGFISHER, 
171 
There are people who imagine that the brilliancy 
of the plumage of birds has some connexion with a 
tropical sun. Here, however, in our own native 
bird, we have an instance that the glowing sun of 
the tropics is not required to produce a splendid 
plumage. The hottest parts of Asia and of Africa 
do not present us with an azure more rich and lovely 
than that which adorns the back of this charming 
httle bird ; while throughout the whole of America, 
from Hudson's Bay to Tierra del Fuego, there has 
not been discovered a kingfisher with colours half so 
rich or beautiful. Asia, Africa, and America offer 
to the naturalist a vast abundance of different species 
of the kingfisher. Europe presents only one ; but 
that one is like a gem of the finest lustre. 
I feel sorry to add that our kingfisher is becoming 
scarcer every year in this part of Yorkshire. The 
proprietors of museums are always anxious to add 
it to their collections, and offer a tempting price for 
it. On the canals, too, it undergoes a continual 
persecution : not a waterman steers his boat along 
them, but who has his gun ready to procure the king- 
fisher. If I may judge from the disappearance of the 
kite, the raven, and the buzzard from this part of the 
country, I should say that the day is at no great 
distance when the kingfisher will be seen no more in 
this neighbourhood, where once it was so plentiful, 
and its appearance so grateful to every lover of ani- 
mated nature. Where, in fine, its singular mode of 
procuring food, contrasted with its anatomj'^, causes 
astonishment in the beholder, and cannot fail to 
convince him that modern ornithologists were ig« 
