Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/201

Rh in length (sometimes less than a yard) and slopes upwards, probably for drainage. They generally select the banks of rivers or brooks. Small streams communicating either with ponds or rivers are very favourite places, and from the secluded haunts of which they sally out to fish. It is immaterial whether there are fish in the brook, so long as they can procure them in the neighbourhood. The nearest hole to the water I ever found them nesting in was one in the banks of the River Trent, only about three feet above the water. They generally prefer from five to twenty feet above it, and are fond of a bank overhanging it, and with trees about; this probably leaves the hole less open to observation, and accords more with their secluded habits. I once found a nest (so-called) in a gravel-pit a quarter of a mile from water, but as a rule they do not leave the banks bordering on that element. It is easy to anyone familiar with the habits and breeding-places of these beautiful birds to find their eggs. You may generally see by the droppings where the birds most frequently sit, and as this is generally near the hole selected, look about, and on discovering a hole take a little of the earth from the bottom of it in your fingers, and smell it. If they use it the strong smell of fish will soon make you aware of the fact, and you will probably see some bones with it. On getting your arm up, which you will probably fail to do without enlarging the entrance, you will discover more bones, and at the end you may find six or seven eggs, which before being blown look like pearls, from the yelk showing through the glossy and pure white shell. The eggs are almost round in form. Nest there is none; this I have long been quite sure about, and I remember once opening up a hole near the top of a bank till I got to the eggs, which are always placed on a mass of small bones which the bird has disgorged in a small depression scooped out for the purpose. Those naturalists who speak of their constructing a nest of intertwining bones together are quite mistaken. The bird may frequently be caught when sitting, and I have sometimes been startled by her sudden exit while preparing to insert my arm. They are very shy and' wary on the approach of danger, leaving the nest very quietly, and only uttering their shrill loud pipe on getting some distance away. They breed twice in the season, I think, for I have found their eggs in July. They fly very quickly, generally keeping near the water. I have seen them a mile away from where I knew their nests to be, and occasionally in meadows some distance from streams or ponds. Severe winters kill them. I never found more than one pair inhabiting the same brook. In this respect they seem very solitary. You may see them with their young ones flying one after the other along a stream, or seated on a rail or tree feeding them; but as soon as the young birds can take care of themselves they separate. Kingfishers catch their prey by watching from a tree or rail and darting with great rapidity into the water, or by hovering like a Kestrel and then darting down, but generally by the former method.