THE BELTED KINGFISHER 
By WILLIAM DUTCHER 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 19 
The Kingfishers are as large, attractive, and curious a family of 
birds as are their relatives, the Cuckoos. They are distributed over the 
greater part of the globe, but are most numerous in the tropics. All are 
characterized by beauty of plumage, and by interesting and varied habits. 
The common Kingfisher of Europe, with its blue-green upperparts 
and its rich chestnut breast, is an example of the striking plumage of 
this family. 
Among the many legends connected with the European Kingfisher, 
one relates that originally it was somberly clothed ; but 
that a Kingfisher was liberated from Noah’s ark and Classic 
flew toward the setting sun, whereupon the sky was 
reflected from its back, while its breast was scorched by the rays of 
the sun, and ever afterwards its plumage showed the colors of the 
evening sky. 
Another beautiful old fable is that Alcyone, daughter of zEolus, 
grieved so deeply for her husband, who had been shipwrecked, that she 
threw herself into the sea, and was immediately changed into a King- 
fisher, called Halcyon by the ancient Latin-speaking people. 
Pliny says : “Halcyons lay and sit about midwinter when daies be 
shortest ; and the time whiles they are broodie is called the halcyon daies ; 
for during that season the sea is calm and navigable.” Even now the 
adjective “halcyon” represents calm and peaceful days devoted to pleas- 
ant outings in woods or fields or along ocean-beaches, or to paddling 
up some quiet river, all the while learning to know the trees and wild 
flowers, and the songs and forms of birds. 
Such are the restful days when school and work are thrown aside, 
and the tired brain and body drink in great draughts of life and vigor. 
It is then that we see our own Belted Kingfisher perched on some twig 
overhanging the water. It sits as motionless as 
though carved from stone until its watchful eye sees 
a fish in the water below it, when it dives for its 
prey and disappears entirely beneath the surface. It rarely misses its 
aim, and when it reappears a wriggling fish is seen held in the bird’s 
powerful beak. 
The fisherman then flies back to its perch, and, after beating its 
captive on the limb until it is dead, swallows it head first. Sometimes the 
fish darts out of reach before the bird reaches even the surface of the 
water; and in that case the Kingfisher skilfully changes its course, and 
A Watchful 
Pose 
78 
