"Why did you go into that hole to eat?"
The kingfisher chuckled again.
"That is my nest," he said. "My wife is in there. I took the fish to her. She can fish quite as well as I, but our eggs are just hatching and she dare not leave them."
"That a bird's nest?" cried Phyllis. "Who made it?"
"Mrs. Kingfisher and I did," was the reply. "We found this fine steep bank when we came from the south in March.
"I began the nest myself. I held myself still in the air before the bank just as I did when I first noticed you. Then I drove my beak into the soft bank with quick plunges. How the clay rattled and rolled and splashed into the water below!
"It was but a very short time before I had a foothold on the bank. Mrs. Kingfisher and I worked very quickly. Soon we dug ourselves out of sight."
"But how do you dig—"
"Oh, just look at my bill, Phyllis. With it I loosen the earth. With my feet I scratch the dirt out in a perfect shower behind me. Our tunnel is so narrow that we could not turn around in it."
"How deep is it?" asked the little girl, pushing back her big hat and peering in.