60 
BELTED KINGSFISHER. 
fisher; and the sound of his pipe is as well known to the miller 
as the rattling of his own hopper. Rapid streams, with high 
perpendicular banks, particularly if they be of a hard clayey 
or sandy nature, are also favourite places of resort for this bird; 
not only because in sucb places the small fish are more exposed 
to view; but because those steep and dry banks are the chosen 
situations for his nest. Into these he digs with bill and claws, 
horizontally, sometimes to the extent of four or five feet, at the 
distance of a foot or two from the surface. The few materials 
he takes in are not always placed at the extremity of the hole; 
that he and his mate may have room to turn with convenience. 
The eggs are five, pure white, and the first brood usually comes 
out about the beginning of June, and sometimes sooner, accord- 
ing to that part of the country where they reside. On the shores 
of Kentucky river, near the town of Frankfort, I found the fe- 
male sitting early in April. They are very tenacious of their 
haunts, breeding for several successive years in the same hole, 
and do not readily forsake it, even though it be visited. An 
intelligent young gentleman informed me, that having found 
where a Kingsfisher built, he took away its eggs, from time to 
time, leaving always one behind, until he had taken no less 
than eighteen from the same nest. At some of these visits, the 
female being within, retired to the extremity of the hole while 
he withdrew the egg, and next day, when he returned, he found 
she had laid again as usual. 
The fabulous stories related by the ancients of the nest, man- 
ner of hatching, &c. of the Kingsfisher, are too trifling to be re- 
peated here. Over the winds and the waves the humble Kings- 
fishers of our days, at least the species now before us have no 
control. Its nest is neither constructed of glue nor fish-bones; 
but of loose grass and a few feathers. It is not thrown on the 
surface of the water to float about, with its proprietor, at ran- 
dom; but snugly secured from the winds and the weather in 
the recesses of the earth; neither is its head or its feathers be- 
lieved, even by the most illiterate of our clowns or seamen, to 
be a charm for love, a protection against witchcraft, or a secu- 
