The birds of Calcutta / by Frank Finn.

  • Frank Finn
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The birds of Calcutta / by Frank Finn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    9 always plentiful. In another way the Kingfisher is better off in the East, in that it is not much perse- cuted by man, although even here far too many are killed for their feathers. But it is not relentlessly hunted down here as it is in England ; presumably because bright birds are more numerous and destruc- tive fools with guns less so. So our little halcyon is as tame as a robin, and all the details of his daily life may be watched. He is a great believer in “ spheres of influence,” and seems to require a large tank all to himself ; for if I saw another bird besides our usual resident at the Museum tank, there was apt to be an amount of tail-cocking and wing-drooping going on, which argued matrimony in prospect, and hence the tolerance of a stranger is explained. Where the burrow, in which their pinky white eggs are deposited in due season, may be, I do not know ; bub it is not surprising that it should be some little distance off, for Kingfishers often nest some distance away from water. The half-fledged young are funny little things, for their feathers grow to some length before bursting their sheaths, so that the resulting appearance rather suggests a miniature porcupine. Moreover, they rival the Hibernian of fiction in their ability to “ advance backward,” a useful accom- plishment to dwellers in holes. They fledge off into a plumage not much inferior in brilliance to that of
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