I 12 
PICTURES OF BIRD LIFE. 
Thomas Browne gives us the mediaeval folk-lore of the Kingfisher—“ 1 hat a king¬ 
fisher hanged by the bill sheweth in what quarter the wind is by an occult and 
secret propriety, converting the breast to that point of the horizon from whence 
the wind doth blow, is a received opinion, and very strange; introducing natural 
w r eather-cocks and extending magnetical positions as far as animal natures. A con¬ 
ceit supported chiefly by present practice, yet not made out by reason or experience 
(“Vulgar Errors,” III. x.). He made the experiment, but found that when thus 
suspended, Kingfishers had “a casual station, and that they rested irregularly upon 
conversion.” The notion pleased poets, however, and Marlowe makes a character 
say— 
“ But now how stands the wind ? 
Into what corner peers my Halcyon’s bill ? 
Ha ! to the East ? yes.” 
Shakespeare, too, puts into Kent’s mouth (“ King Lear,” ii. 2) — 
“ Such smiling rogues as these 
Renege, affirm, and turn their Halcyon beaks 
With every gale and vary of their masters.” 
In recent years a Kingfisher has been seen hanging from the beam of a cottage 
as a vane to show the direction of the wind. Near Southampton a superstition 
exists (or used to do) that a dead Kingfisher suspended by the bill will turn its 
breast according to the ebb and flow of the tide. “ It was also a custom of old, 
once more to quote Sir Thomas Browne, “to keep these birds in chests upon 
opinion that they prevented moths. Whether it were not first hanged up in rooms 
to such effects is not beyond all doubt. But the eldest custom of hanging up 
these birds was founded upon a tradition that they would renew their feathers every 
year, as though they were alive. In expectation whereof four hundred years ago 
Albertus Magnus was deceived.” The bird was also supposed to be a protection 
against thunder, to increase hidden treasure, and to bestow grace and beauty on 
the person who carried it. What with all these recommendations, and with the 
cruel custom prevalent a few years ago when birds’ plumes, stuck in a lady s hat, 
were thought to enhance her charms, it is perhaps a matter of small wonder that 
the Kingfisher is now anything but common in England. 
Many authors have loved to dwell upon the beautiful scenes associated with 
the Kingfisher. Thus Browning— 
“The river pushes 
Its gentle way through straggling rushes, 
Where the glossy Kingfisher 
