colours rare,” sitting upon its twig with the tiny fish in its beak. Only, however, for half an instant, for the bird raps its little captive sharply upon the twig, perhaps more than once, and then it is gone where all little fishes go that kingfishers chance to catch. Sometimes, indeed, it is not content to swallow the wee thing in a commonplace way, but, as the toucans often do with their food, must needs throw it up into the air, and catch it with open throat head first as it falls. And if you listen you will hear the kingfisher compliment itself upon its cleverness with a congratulatory little chirrup. So, too, when it misses its aim at a passing fish—for it does miss it sometimes—it comes back to its perch with a cheery little “peep-peep,” as much as to say “Never mind.” And when it flies off down the stream, startled by your sudden coming, you may, if you have quick ears, hear it comforting itself in a nervous sort of way with a succession of “peeps,” but if you go and hide behind the hedge or a bush, you will very soon see it returning, a swift flash of orange and blue, and lo! there is the kingfisher back again just where you first saw it, on its pliant twig, “with the small breath of the water shaken,” and its clever eye fixed upon the water beneath.
For, like flycatchers, shrikes and other birds, it returns, if it can, always to one “post of observation,” and just as the dragon-fly at the edge of the stream keeps flying back to the same reed after every excursion, so the kingfisher, though you have just seen it go darting off like a blue gem on wings, in and out of ever so many twists and turns of the little stream, comes back, and in a surprisingly short time, to the very spot it started from.
This habit brings many of them to their death, for there are still, in spite of all the appeals of the humane, the protests of lovers of Nature, and the threatenings of the law, numbers of men who call themselves fishermen who try to do these lovely birds to death. That “halcyons” eat fish, and nothing else if they can get enough of them, is beyond all doubt, and when there are five young ones in the nest in the bank, they must kill a great number. But granting all this, the fact remains, that the man who would go about to compass the killing of a kingfisher is not an angler of the best type.
However, in spite of them and all other enemies, this sweet ornament of our rivers is still abundant, and there is no secluded stream where the lover of Nature may not enjoy himself with the sight of it at its work, patient and clever, or admire its rare beauty as it flashes up and down.
“There came
Swift as a meteor’s flashing flame
A kingfisher from out the brake,
And almost seemed to leave a wake
Of brilliant hues behind.”