Page:Wild nature won by kindness (IA wildnaturewonbyk00brigiala).pdf/188

 but in spite of all my care they only lived four weeks; which, however, is probably the term of their existence.

Whilst I was writing this paper a singular incident occurred. I heard a strange, wild note, and something brilliant dashed past me to the end of the room, and there, on a white marble bust sat a lovely kingfisher—a bird I had hardly ever seen, even at a distance, and here he had come to pay me a visit in my drawing-room. Would that I could have told him how welcome he was! but, alas! he darted about the room in wild alarm, flew against the looking-glasses, and though I tried to guard him from a plate-glass window, that has often proved fatal to birds, I was too late; he came with a crash against it and fell down quite dead, his neck being broken by the force of the blow.

I had heard that a kingfisher had been seen at my lake, and hoped that the bird might build and become established there; it was, therefore, a keen regret to me that this bright visitant had met with such an untimely fate.