Plate XLVII. 
Fig. 2. CERYLE ALCYON— Belied Kingfisher. 
The Kingfisher is a bird of striking outline, of beautiful plumage, and of very interesting habits. 
It is a summer resident throughout the State, quite uniformly distributed, but nowhere very numerous. 
In the neighborhood of Circleville a few may be seen during even the severest winters, and I believe 
these to be the same birds that breed here in the summer, from the fact that I have observed them in 
the same localities throughout the entire year. But one brood is usually reared by a single pair during 
a season. This is hatched about the second week in June. 
LOCALITY: 
The site usually chosen for the home is a prependieular sandy or clayey bank along a creek, canal, 
river, pond, or lake where shallow water and small fish abound. Sometimes the site is half a mile 
or more from water in the bank of a gravel-pit or some similar place, but such a situation is exceptional. 
A bluff sandy bank on the convex side of a rapid but shallow stream is of all others the favorite locality. 
POSITION: 
The excavation of the hole, which is preliminary to the nest proper, is generally begun several 
feet below the top of the bank, but high enough above the surface of the water to escape being flooded 
during freshets. If a low bank is selected, this, however, may not be possible. Often the hole is in a 
bank fifty or a hundred feet high ; in this case it is usually much nearer the top than the water. As a 
rule, the nest is situated above the high-water mark of the stream along which it is built. I have 
several times seen nests overflowed which contained either eggs or young. 
The excavation is projected horizontally into the bank from three to six feet: exceptionally even to 
the distance of eight or nine feet, usually in a tolerably straight line, but sometimes it makes quite an 
angular course or even an abrupt angle, either to avoid a stone or root or perhaps simply to please the 
builder's fancy. The diameter of the hole is often large enough for a man's fist to enter, and at the 
opening the bird’s feet and feathers round the edges, especially the lower part, which frequently shows 
the marks of the bird's toe-nails. I took a set of eggs from a nest a few years since about twenty-five 
feet above the water, and as many feet below the top of the bank. It was situated in a vein of fine 
yellow sand. The hole, after entering the sand about three feet, turned to the right at nearly right 
angles, and at the end of about three feet more enlarged into a cavity a foot in diameter. The hole is 
usually enlarged somewhat at its extremity' where the eggs are placed, but this one exceeded in this 
respect any before seen. 
MATERIALS : 
A few blades of grass, straws, or like materials usually cover the floor of the enlarged cavity at the 
end of the excavation, and upon these the eggs are laid. Fish-bones and scales and craw-fish remains 
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