114 
NATURE NOTES. 
THE KINGFISHER-CATCHER. 
T is satisfactory to note that our literary journals give 
their influential support to the objects which the 
Selborne Society has made its own. Last month we 
quoted from the Saturday Review an energetic protest 
against the disfigurement of Kew Gardens by unnecessary tree- 
felling, and now the National Observer (of May g) speaks earnestly 
upon the subject of the destruction of birds. There is so much 
of interest in the account that we venture to reproduce it in full 
for the benefit of our readers : — 
Everybody who has lived in India and not kept his eyes in his pocket is 
familiar with the large blue kingfisher, or, as it is sometimes called, the white- 
breasted kingfisher. There are many kinds of kingfishers in that country, of 
many sizes, from the great, coarsely coloured and loud-voiced Pelargopsis, almost 
as big as a crow, to a little gem so slightly different from our own bright English 
kingfisher that ornithologists are almost agreed that it should be known by the 
same scientific name. But of them all there is not one that is more generally 
spread over all the country and catches the unobservant eye more easily than the 
white-breasted kingfisher. Birds have their characters, like men, and among 
them, as among us, “ the apparel oft proclaims the man.” A glance at this 
white breasted kingfisher is enough to show that it is not one of those quiet, 
unobtrusive personalities who pursue their way through the world without 
attracting attention. All kingfishers are beautiful, but this one is aggressively 
beautiful, gaudy and made up of contrasts which challenge the eye. When it 
sits on some out-reaching, withered branch, overhanging a pond or stream, and 
watches for fish turning, its long coral-red fish-spear this way and that way, its 
snow-white shirt-front, invading the rich chestnut brown of its underparts, refuses 
to let you pass without noting it ; and when it flies, then blue and black and red 
and white blaze out together, like a firework designed to dazzle and delight. 
Moreover, in obedience to a general law of nature which forbids gay colours and 
a musical voice to the same bird, it has a loud, hoarse rattling note, which it 
generally utters when on the wing, announcing its arrival or departure like the 
governor’s guns. It is an indifferent fisher, and preys chiefly on creatures more 
easily caught than fishes, to wit, on tadpoles, frogs, lizards, large insects and the 
like, creatures which do not usually enjoy much of our sympathy. Yet the catch- 
ing and killing of this poor bird constitutes one of the many curious occupations by 
which man makes his bread. In India, where a religion prevails according to 
which it is sinful to take any life, there are at this day men whose whole business 
it is to wander about the country snaring this particular species of kingfisher. 
I once fell in with one of these wretches, and he freely showed me his methods, 
llis apparatus was a very fine, almost invisible net, running by loose rings upon 
three thin, straight sticks, which were sharpened at the points, like cricket stumps. 
When he had noted the haunt of a kingfisher, all he had to do was to set the 
three sticks lightly in the ground, in the form of a triangle, with the net draped 
upon them, and tether a decoy bird to a i>eg in the middle, and retire. The 
kingfisher is a pugnacious fellow, and no sooner sees the intruder than it cries 
(I am quoting the bird-catcher), “ Hullo ! What are you doing in my grounds?” 
and dashes at the intruder, plunging against the net, which it does not notice. 
Net and sticks come down together and envelop it, and the bird-catcher, coming 
out of his hiding-place, wrings its neck and cuts off its wings, which are all he 
wants. 
The fellow took out one of his decoys to show me the way in which he 
wrung the neck and plucked off the wings. The poor bird resented the insult, 
fighting fiercely with its long red beak, and he restored it to the hag in which he 
kept it ; but I knew that its turn would soon come, for a kingfisher is a difficult 
bird to keep, and it saves trouble to use a fresh captive e.ach day and wring the 
neck of the old one. The man had already collected a hundred wings and he 
