KINGFISHER. 
caught, the bird kills it by beating it 
several times against its resting-place, and 
then swallows it, head foremost.' Some- 
times it does not exercise sufficient cau- 
tion in its devouring propensities. A 
heedless Kingfisher was exhibited at the 
Ashmolean Society, which had been found 
dead with a peculiarly large minnow 
firmly fixed in its throat. 
It lays its eggs in holes bored in the 
banks of rivers or ponds, and appears to 
bnild no nest. A pair of Kingfishers, for 
two successive years, inhabited a bank of 
a very small stream, little- more than a 
di ain, at Little Hinton, Wiltshire, where 
no fish lived, nor where there any to be 
found within a considerable distance. 
