. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. THE EUROPEAN places. Dixon, lARELY indeed is this charm- ing bird now found in Eng- land, where formerly it could be seen darting hither and thither in most frequented late years, according to has been persecuted so greatly, partly by the collector, who never fails to secure the brilliant creature for his cabinet at every oppor- tunity, and partly by those who have an inherent love for destroying every living object around them. Game- keepers, too, are up in arms against him, because of his inordinate love of preying on the finny tribe
. Birds & nature. Birds; Natural history. THE EUROPEAN places. Dixon, lARELY indeed is this charm- ing bird now found in Eng- land, where formerly it could be seen darting hither and thither in most frequented late years, according to has been persecuted so greatly, partly by the collector, who never fails to secure the brilliant creature for his cabinet at every oppor- tunity, and partly by those who have an inherent love for destroying every living object around them. Game- keepers, too, are up in arms against him, because of his inordinate love of preying on the finny tribe. Where the Kingfisher now is seen is in the most secluded places, the author adds, where the trout streams murmur through the silent woods, but seldom trod by the foot of man ; or in the wooded gullies down which the stream from the mountains far above rushes and tumbles over the huge rocks, or lies in pools smooth as the finest mir- ror. The Kingfisher is comparatively a silent bird, though he sometimes utters a few harsh notes as he flies swift as a meteor through the wooded glades. You not unfrequently flush the King- fisher from the holes in the banks, and amongst the brambles skirting the stream. He roosts at night in holes, usually the nesting cavity. Sometimes he will alight on stumps and branches projecting from the water, and sit quiet and motionless, but on your approach he darts quickly away, often uttering a feeble seep, -^^'^A as he goes. The habits of the English Kingfisher are identical with those of the American, though the former is the more brilliant bird in plumage. (See Birds, Vol. I, p. 62.) The ancients had a very absurd idea as to its nesting habits. They believed that the bird built a floating nest, and whenev^er the old bird and her charge were drifted by the winds, as they floated over the briny deep, the sea remained calm. He was, therefore, to the ancient mariner, a bird held sacred in the extreme. Even now these absurd superstitions have not wholly
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