THE THIRD FAMILY OF THE FISSIROSTRAL PICARIAN BIRDS.
THE KINGFISHERS (Alcedinidæ).
The Kingfishers are a very varied family, including within their limits birds of very different form and habits. The bill is always long and powerful for the size of the bird, producing, in some of the smaller species, a top-heavy and ungainly aspect; but this organ is modified according to the habits of the birds, and is strictly in accordance with the functions which it has to perform. The foot is similar in all Kingfishers, the sole being very flat, and the toes joined together for the greater part of their length, so that the birds always have a very firm support to their bodies. The legs are very short and weak, the wings powerful, and the gape very wide. The Kingfishers may be divided into two sub-families, distinguished by the form of the bill, which is long and compressed in the fish-eating Kingfishers (Alcedininæ), of which the European bird is a type, with a distinct ridge or keel along the upper mandible; while in the Daceloninæ, which have a stouter and flatter bill, with a smooth and rounded culmen, the food is varied, consisting more of insects than of fish.
THE COMMON KINGFISHER (Alcedo[265] ispida).
COMMON KINGFISHER.
This is, perhaps, the most brilliantly-coloured bird there is in England, but by reason of its shy habits and wonderfully quick flight it is not often observed, excepting as a flash of bright blue on the river side, appearing for an instant and gone the next. It is, however, by no means uncommon in many of the rivers in the south of England, particularly during the month of October, when a partial migration of the species evidently takes place. At this season of the year, the writer once observed a Kingfisher on the ornamental water in St. James’s Park. Beyond the British Islands it is found in most parts of the European continent, being replaced in the East by the little Indian Kingfisher (A. bengalensis), a miniature of the English bird, but with a much longer bill. The following account of the habits of this bird, the result of several years’ close acquaintance with the species on the river Thames, is taken from the author’s work on this subject[266]:—“When in a wild state, flying along the banks of a stream, or sitting patiently at watch for its finny prey, the Kingfisher is a beautiful sight. Often has it been our good fortune to witness the bird at close quarters, but this is by no means easy to accomplish, owing to the extreme wariness of the bird from repeated persecution. The presence of the Kingfisher in one’s neighbourhood can be detected from some distance by the faint cry which falls upon the ear from afar. This note, which is a shrill, but not unmusical, scream, generally consists of two syllables, but is very difficult to render in language. Naumann gives it as ti-ti, which is by no means a bad representation of the cry; and these syllables are quickly repeated as the bird leaves its perch and skims over the stream. The flight is rapid and very direct, the bird speeding like a bullet a little height above the surface of the water. When suddenly disturbed, it utters its cry shortly after leaving its perch, and then flies for some distance in silence; but when passing unmolested from one resting-place to another, its shrill note may be heard at frequent intervals. Just before perching, the cry is uttered three or four times successively—ti-ti-ti. When resting, it sits uprightly, with the glance directed downwards, motionlessly scanning the stream beneath, intent on the capture of any fish or water insect which may come within its reach. Its unerring dive seldom proves fruitless; and when secured, a few smart raps on its perch, to which the bird always returns, deprive the victim of life, after which it is immediately swallowed. Except in the early morning, it seldom chooses a very open position for its resting-place; but in the autumn, when the migration is in progress, at break of day it is not unusual to see two, or even three, birds in company on a rail or on the side of a punt; in the day-time, however, it loves solitude, and seldom more than one can be seen at once, and then it affects more shady and secluded haunts. In general it is a lonely bird, jealous of intrusion, especially from individuals of its own species. Each pair appears to choose and maintain a particular hunting-ground, and should one Kingfisher enter upon the domain of another, it is speedily and effectually ousted by the rightful owner with cries of rage. So fierce is the animosity displayed by these birds, that when excited in combat they fly heedless of obstacles, and thus occasionally meet their death in their headlong career.” An instance is on record of two Kingfishers flying with such violence against a window that both pursuer and pursued met their death on the spot. The present species does not always pounce on its prey from a perch, but will occasionally fly out over the mid-stream, and hover in the air like a Kestrel Hawk; and after making an unsuccessful plunge, will repeat its hovering position over the same spot, until its efforts are rewarded with success. It has been seen also to dash into the water several times in succession, which movement has been supposed to be for the purpose of attracting fish to the spot by disturbing the water; it is, however, more probable that in this exercise the bird is taking a bath. The young have exactly the same cry as their parents, but the note is less shrill. On leaving the nest, they often congregate in some well-shaded locality by the side of the stream, where food is brought to them by their parents, and the presence of the nestlings is often betrayed by their shrill pipings. The bill in the young birds is very short, and has a little white tip to it; in the adult male it is entirely black; but the female may always be distinguished by the base of the lower mandible being red.
That the Kingfisher makes its own hole is now an ascertained fact, and the following note on the subject was published in 1866 by Mr. G. Dawson Rowley:—“Though the subject of the Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) is somewhat stale, yet, in consequence of the remarks which I have just read in the October Quarterly on ‘Homes without Hands,’ I send you the following notes, made this spring, in order to set at rest, if possible, a mistake regarding the breeding of this bird. Modern writers on the Kingfisher are hardly more free from error than even Ovid or Pliny. The bird is a true miner, and makes a nest of fish-bones; but, as no rule is without an exception, when it cannot find a suitable bank to bore in, it has been known to nidificate in abnormal situations; and when abundance of proper fish are not to be caught it is obliged to do without bones.
“From many years’ constant watching, I can exactly tell the probable position of the hole, and the day it will be begun. Accordingly, on Thursday, March 29, I sent two witnesses to a particular spot on the River Ouse, St. Neots, Huntingdonshire. They observed that there was on that day positively no hole of any kind, no vestige of hole, in that bank. On Easter Monday, April 2, I sent a keeper to the place. He reported the hole as begun. On the same day I went in a boat, and, putting a reed up, found it by actual measurement about fifteen inches deep, the moulds being quite fresh outside. Droppings of the bird (which was seen constantly leaving the hole) were visible in two places. There was also a shallow hole a little to the left of the above-mentioned one. This was a failure—either from caprice or some other cause abandoned. We observe the same in Woodpeckers, which will sometimes bore in three or four places before they get one to their liking, a circumstance I particularly remarked in a pair of the Greater Spotted Woodpeckers (P. major) last spring. Between March 29 and April 2 the Kingfisher had made two holes. I thought it best now to leave the place, only receiving from the keeper each morning a report, as he went by in his boat, how the bird was going on.
“Saturday, April 7, I made a memorandum: ‘I again observe fresh moulds, but not, as we consider, to-day’s, but yesterday’s: hence I suppose the hole to be nearly finished, if not quite.’ Here, I should say, after taking these nests constantly for nearly thirty years, I find twenty-one days is the correct time, from the commencement of the excavation to the end of laying seven eggs. I never had the luck to find eight; Mr. Gould, however, informs me he once did. ‘Saturday, April 21. Opened the hole situated in the perpendicular bank to keep off Water-rats. Found by measurement the entrance was twelve inches from the surface of the ground, and about five feet from the water. The length of the ascending gallery was eight inches and a half, and the oval chamber six inches in diameter more. The top of the chamber was nine inches from the surface of the ground. It contained the usual nest of fish-bones, which was one inch and a half deep; and the same, with the seven fresh eggs, are now before me, with two other nests from the same locality. The bird flew off after the first dig, which I commonly made so as to cover up the hole again without disturbance if the full number of eggs had not been laid. There was no excrement in the chamber, but much just outside in the gallery.’ The size of the chamber is just sufficient for the owners to turn round pleasantly. When the young birds, which I have seen in every stage, have been some time in the nest, of course the hole gets very foul. Here, then, is a case, capable of being attested by two or three witnesses step by step—and concerning which there can be no doubt—where the Kingfisher is proved to have made its own hole. I have known it when driven from one bank by floods to revert to an old hole of its own making in the previous year; but never has there been an instance of its taking up with the abode of its most deadly enemy, the Water-rat. It is hard to prove a negative, but it is certainly a most unlikely thing for a Kingfisher to enter a rat-hole. No one who has seen the eggs of this species in situ as often as I have can deny that the fish-bones are placed with the design of making a nest.”
In the British Museum may be seen a nest of the Kingfisher, which was taken by Mr. Gould under the following circumstances:—“On the 18th of April, 1859, during one of my fishing excursions on the Thames, I saw a hole in a precipitous bank, which I felt assured was the nesting-place of a Kingfisher; and on passing a spare top of my fly rod to the extremity, a distance of nearly three feet, I brought out some freshly-cast bones of fish, convincing me that I was right in my surmise. The day following I again visited the spot with a spade, and, after removing nearly two feet square of the turf, dug down to the nest without disturbing the passage which led to it. Here I found four eggs placed on the usual layer of fish-bones. These I removed with care, and then replaced the earth, beating it down as hard as the bank itself, and restored the turfy sod. A fortnight after the bird was seen to leave the hole again, and my suspicions were aroused that she had taken to her old breeding quarters a second time. I again visited the place on the twenty-first day from the date of my former exploration, and upon passing the top of my fly rod up the hole, found, not only that it was of the former length, but that the female was within. I then took a large mass of cotton-wool from my collecting-box, and stuffed it to the extremity, in order to preserve the eggs from damage during my again laying it open from above. On removing the sod and digging down as before, I came to the cotton-wool, and beneath it was formed a nest of fish-bones the size of a small saucer, the walls of which were fully half an inch thick, together with eight translucent pinky-white eggs, and the old female herself. This nest I removed with the greatest care; and it is now deposited in the proper place for so interesting an object—the British Museum. This mass of bones, then weighing 700 grains, had been cast up and deposited by the bird and its mate in the short space of twenty-one days. Ornithologists are divided in opinion as to whether the fish-bones are to be considered in the light of a nest. Some are disposed to believe them to be the castings and fæces of the young brood of the year, and that the same hole being frequented for a succession of years, a great mass is at length formed; while others suppose that they are deposited by the parents as a platform for the eggs, constituting, in fact, a nest; and I think, from what I have adduced, we may fairly conclude this is the case: in fact, nothing could be better adapted to defend the eggs from the damp earth.” In ancient times there was a legend that when the Kingfishers made their nests—which were supposed to float upon the top of the sea—fine weather was always allowed to prevail.[267] A custom used formerly to be in vogue in England of turning a Kingfisher into a weathercock; and, according to the late M. Jules Verreaux, this practice is pursued in France even in the present day, where the bird is mummified and suspended by a thread with extended wings in order to show the direction of the wind. Mr. Harting alludes to these superstitions in his “Ornithology of Shakespeare” (p. 275). It was formerly believed that during the time the Halcyon, or Kingfisher, was engaged in hatching her eggs, the water, in kindness to her, remained so smooth and calm that the mariner might venture on the sea with the happy certainty of not being exposed to storms or tempests; this period was therefore called, by Pliny and Aristotle, “the halcyon days.”