told, "yielding a little to the fascination of
the spot, had prepared for his mate a bower
of love. And where does the reader think
it was placed. The gallant curassow had
mounted a tall holly-bush, and thereon made
a nest about the size and shape of a peck
basket, interlacing the twigs, and then lining
them with the prickly leaves, which he had
cropped, as a comfortable couch for the hen
and her nestlings. The whole thing was an
insult to any incubating female, and she
treated it with the neglect that such a
structure of chevaux-de-frises deserved."

There seems to be especial difficulty about
the acclimatising into Europe the birds of
South America. This may be in some degree
accounted for by the reversal of the seasons,
consequent on a transfer from the southern
to the northern hemisphere. Periodicity
of moulting time, being established in the
body of a bird and suited to its habitat, a
change of habitat which turns the seasons
upside down, must expose the animal to many
risks. In the case, however, of the black
swan and some other Australian birds, this
difficulty seems to have been overcome.

'Then there is the water-hen to talk about;
concerning which Aldrovandi wrote during
our "good old times." "In the stagnant
waters," he says, "which fence the houses of
the nobility, and in fish-ponds, it mostly dwells
amongst the English." It can skim the surface
of the water, run upon the floating leaves
of water-lilies, dive, swim in the water or on
the water, fly in the air, or climb trees. The
young look like mice upon two legs; for on
them is rather a fur than a down that keeps
the water out. As the bird grows, the fur
becomes a downy undercoat, concerning which
a friend whom Mr. Dixon quotes discourses
pleasantly and profitably. "The linsey-woolsey
undercoat of the water-hen is admirably
adapted to its amphibious mode
of life. Man has been unable hitherto
to devise anything approaching to the soft,
warm, and elastic waterproof mantle of the
gallinule. All our combinations of Welsh
flannel, Llama cloth, and Mackintosh are
infinitely inferior to the coverings of the duck
and the goose. The way in which this
clothing is distributed on the body of the
water-hen, is well worthy of notice. The
whole is warm and waterproof, but the
inner garment over the crop, where it meets
the brush of the water in the act of running
through wet grass and in diving, is much
thicker than on the breast, within which the
vital organs are well shielded by muscles
and bone. Over the belly the thick, close,
impervious down covers the intestines, and
preserves them effectually from the wet and
cold to which they are so much exposed in
wading through the moist, rank herbage of
their favourite swamps. It has often struck
me, in examining waterfowl, that the air
enclosed in the delicate network of down
must be one provision for keeping the bird
dry, as if it were sailing upon a natural air
cushion."

Then there is the kingfisher with his
glittering metallic foliage—in flight all blue, in
repose all ruddy brown. He is a restless
fellow: suddenly dashing on the water, he
seems to rebound from it in upward flight as
a cricket ball from the bat. Then he will
settle on the nearest twig, in an impetuous,
thoughtless way. A veracious friend of Mr.
Dixon's, angling near Norwich, was quietly
watching his float, when a kingfisher darted
under the arch of an adjacent bridge, and
settled on his fishing rod, the nearest twig.
Of course he soon flew off again. From a
twig the busy bird looks down into the stream
till he espies a fish; then with a sure aim he
darts upon it, and rising from the water with
unwetted wings, flies off to take a dinner in
his nest. A surgeon of Uxbridge, Mr. W.
Rayner, has kept as a sort of happy family in
one aviary, thirty-three feet long, ten wide,
and seventeen high, ninety-four species of
birds. Trees were planted in the aviary—fir,
box, birch, and beech; there was also a
fountain, and the birds followed their natural
instincts. Among the birds in a separate
long cage was a nest of kingfishers confined
with two hobby hawks. The young kingfishers
acquired a taste for the meat given to
the hawks, and when they had a piece of
meat they would hold it in their bill and
strike each end against the perch for a few
seconds, as they are in the habit of striking
any fish to stun before they swallow it. The
minnows in the fountain were, however, their
real diet. Having feasted upon these, a kingfisher,
says the surgeon by whom these birds
were kept, "becomes inactive for some quarter
of an hour or twenty minutes, its feathers
rumpled, and sitting all of a heap, sleepy and
stupid. This lasts during digestion, which
is very rapid; and as soon as it is completed,
the bird is observed to be opening its bill
very wide two or three times, and at length
ejects a pellet about an inch long, composed
of bones, beautifully matted together, and
not unlike a lump of Epsom salts, (you see I
cannot help comparisons which are natural
to me). This mass is perfectly inodorous,
and forms, in the wild state, the nidus for the
deposit of their eggs, in the holes to which
they continue to resort, year after year, for
breeding purposes."

Mr. Rayner's nest contained seven young
kingfishers, but as they approached mature
years they fought together until one only
survived. The kingfisher is a solitary bird;
except about breeding time it is not even seen
in pairs. It needs much elbow room, and in
a wild state loves to flit from stream to
stream. It is curious that, while the kingfishers
here live upon fish, and frequent
exclusively the water sides, there are kingfishers
in Australia which never see water at
all, and never drink it. They were to be
found, healthy and breeding, on the parched