BELTED KINGSFISHER. 
171 
species of hawks, ready to pounce on the fry below ; 
now and then settling on an old dead overhanging limb 
to reconnoitre. Mill-dams are particularly visited by 
this feathered 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 hanks, 
particularly if they be of a hard clayey, or sandy nature, 
are also favourite places of resort for this bird ; not only 
because in such places the small fish are more exposed 
to view, hut because those steep and dry hanks 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, according to that part of the country where 
they reside. On the shores of Kentucky river, near 
the town of Frankfort, I found the female 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, manner of hatching, &c. of the kingsfisher, are 
too trifling to be repeated here. Over the winds and 
the waves the humble kingsfishers of our days, at least 
the species now before us, have no control. Its nest 
is neither constructed of glue nor fish hones; but of 
loose grass and a few feathers. It is not thrown on the 
surface of the water to float about, with its proprietor, 
