A little brother to the bear, and other animal studies

by William J. Long

When the young birds came, the most interesting bit of Koskomenos' life was manifest. One morning as I sat watching, hidden away in the bushes, the mother kingfisher put her head out of her hole and looked about very anxiously. A big water-snake lay stretched along a stranded log on the shore. She pounced upon him instantly and drove him out of sight. Just above, at the foot of the trout pool, a brood of sheldrake were croaking and splashing about in the shallows. They were harmless, yet the kingfisher rushed upon them, clattering and scolding like a fishwife, and harried them all away into a quiet bogan.

On the way back she passed over a frog, a big, sober, sleepy fellow, waiting on a lily-pad for his sun-bath. Chigwooltz might catch young trout, and even little birds as they came to drink, but he would surely never molest a brood of kingfishers; yet the mother, like an irate housekeeper flourishing her broom at every corner of an unswept room, sounded her rattle loudly and dropped on the sleepy frog's head, sending him sputtering and scrambling away into the mud, as if Hawahak the hawk were after him. Then with another look all round to see that the stream was clear, and with a warning rattle to any Wood Folk that she might have overlooked, she darted into her nest, wiggling her tail like a satisfied duck as she disappeared.

After a moment a wild-eyed young kingfisher put his head out of the hole for his first look at the big world. A push from behind cut short his contemplation, and without any fuss whatever he sailed down to a dead branch on the other side of the stream. Another and another followed in the same way, as if each one had been told just what to do and where to go, till the whole family were sitting a-row, with the rippling stream below them and the deep blue heavens and the rustling world of woods above.

That was their first lesson, and their reward was near. The male bird had been fishing since daylight; now he began to bring minnows from an eddy where he had stored them, and to feed the hungry family and assure them, in his own way, that this big world, so different from the hole in the bank, was a good place to live in, and furnished no end of good things to eat.

The next lesson was more interesting, the lesson of catching fish. The school was a quiet, shallow pool with a muddy bottom against which the fish showed clearly, and with a convenient stub leaning over it from which to swoop. The old birds had caught a score of minnows, killed them, and dropped them here and there under the stub. Then they brought the young birds, showed them their game, and told them by repeated examples to dive and get it. The little fellows were hungry and took to the sport keenly; but one was timid, and only after the mother had twice dived and brought up a fish—which she showed to the timid one and then dropped back in a most tantalizing way—did he muster up resolution to take the plunge.

A few mornings later, as I prowled along the shore, I came upon a little pool quite shut off from the main stream, in which a dozen or more frightened minnows were darting about, as if in strange quarters. As I stood watching them and wondering how they got over the dry bar that separated the pool from the river, a kingfisher came sweeping up-stream with a fish in his bill. Seeing me, he whirled silently and disappeared round the point below.

The thought of the curious little wild kindergarten occurred to me suddenly as I turned to the minnows again, and I waded across the river and hid in the bushes. After an hour's wait Koskomenos came stealing back, looked carefully over the pool and the river, and swept down-stream with a rattling call. Presently he came back again with his mate and the whole family; and the little ones, after seeing their parents swoop, and tasting the fish they caught, began to swoop for themselves.

The first plunges were usually in vain, and when a minnow was caught it was undoubtedly one of the wounded fish that Koskomenos had placed there in the lively swarm to encourage his little ones. After a try or two, however, they seemed to get the knack of the thing and would drop like a plummet, bill first, or shoot down on a sharp incline and hit their fish squarely as it darted away into deeper water. The river was wild and difficult, suitable only for expert fishermen. The quietest pools had no fish, and where minnows were found the water or the banks were against the little kingfishers, who had not yet learned to hover and take their fish from the wing. So Koskomenos had found a suitable pool and stocked it himself to make his task of teaching more easy for his mate and more profitable for his little ones. The most interesting point in his method was that, in this case, he had brought the minnows alive to his kindergarten, instead of killing or wounding them, as in the first lesson. He knew that the fish could not get out of the pool, and that his little ones could take their own time in catching them.

When I saw the family again, weeks afterwards, their lessons were well learned; they needed no wounded or captive fish to satisfy their hunger. They were full of the joy of living, and showed me, one day, a curious game,—the only play that I have ever seen among the kingfishers.

There were three of them, when I first found them, perched on projecting stubs over the dancing riffles, which swarmed with chub and "minnies" and samlets and lively young red-fins. Suddenly, as if at the command go! they all dropped, bill first, into the river. In a moment they were out again and rushed back to their respective stubs, where they threw their heads back and wriggled their minnows down their throats with a haste to choke them all. That done, they began to dance about on their stubs, clattering and chuckling immoderately.