The sense of smelling in this little spaniel is very remarkable. The following anecdote is related by Brown to instance it:—
In 1792, a gentleman who lived in Vere Street, Clare Market, went, with his family, to the pit of Drury Lane theatre, at about half-past five in the evening, leaving a small spaniel of King Charles’s breed locked up in the dining room, to prevent it from being lost in his absence. At eight o’clock his son opened the door, and the dog immediately went to the playhouse, and found out his master, though the pit was unusually crowded, and its master seated near the centre.—Brown.
Kingfisher, s. A species of bird.
King-fisher. (Alcedo ispida, Linn.; Le Martin-pécheur, Buff.)—This splendid little bird is rather of a clumsy shape, the head being large in proportion to the size of the body, and the legs and feet very small. In length it is only seven inches, in breadth eleven; and its weight is about two ounces and a quarter. The bill, measured from the corners of the mouth, is two inches long, vertically compressed on the sides, strong, straight, and tapering to a sharp point: the upper mandible is black, fading into a red-colour towards the base; the under one, as well as the inside of the mouth, is of a reddish orange: the irides are hazel, inclining to red. A broad stripe passes from the bill over the eye to the hinder part of the neck, a bright orange colour, but margined on the side of the mouth, and crossed, below the eye, by a narrow black stroke, and it is terminated behind the auriculars with a slanting wedge-shaped white spot. The throat is white; the rest of the head and wing coverts are of a deep shining green, spotted with bright light blue: the scapulars and exterior webs of the quills are of the same colour, but without spots. The middle of the back, the rump, and the coverts of the tail are of a most resplendent azure: the tail, which consists of twelve short feathers, is of a rich deep blue, and the whole under part of the body of a bright orange. The legs and toes are of a red-colour, and are peculiar in their shape and conformation, the three forward toes being unconnected from the claws to the first joints, from whence they appear as if grown into each other; and the inner and hinder ones are placed in a line on the inside of the foot, whereby the heel is widened and seems pressed out.
The suspension of this bird by a thread, under the notion that its breast will always turn to the north, is as fabulous as that it will preserve woollen cloth from the moth.
“I have once or twice,” says Mrs. Charlotte Smith, “seen a stuffed bird of this species hung up to the beam of a cottage ceiling, and imagined that the beauty of the feathers had recommended it to this sad pre-eminence, till, on inquiry, I was assured that it served the purpose of a weather-vane; and, though sheltered from the immediate influence of the wind, never failed to show every change, by turning its beak to the quarter whence the wind blew.” The learned, but somewhat credulous author of the “Physicæ Curiosæ,” says the same, upon the testimony of his own observation. “Father Athanasius Kircher,” he says, “had one of these birds sent him as a present by a friend, and being disembowelled and dried, it was suspended from the ceiling of his celebrated museum, from 1640 to 1655, when I left Rome; and though all the doors and windows were shut, it constantly turned its bill towards the wind, and this I myself observed with admiration and pleasure almost every day for the space of three years!!”
It is difficult to conceive why ornithologists have classed the kingfisher with land birds, as its habits and manner of living are wholly confined to the waters, on the margins of which it will sit for hours together on a projecting twig or a stone, at one while fluttering its wings and exposing its brilliant plumage to the sun; at another, hovering in the air, like the kestrel, it waits the moment when it may seize its prey, on which it darts with almost unerring certainty: often it remains for several seconds under the water, before it has gained the object of its pursuit, then brings up the little fish, which it carries to the land, beats to death, and swallows.
The female commonly makes her nest by the sides of rivers or brooks, in a hole made by the mole, or the water-rat: this she enlarges or contracts to suit her purpose; and it is conjectured, from the difficulty of finding the nest, that frequently the hole which leads to it is under water.
Kingfishers are not so numerous as might be expected from the number of eggs found in their nests; owing, probably, to the young being destroyed by the floods, which must often rise above the level of the holes where they are bred.