File:Birdcraft - a field book of two hundred song, game, and water birds (1897) (14565071060).jpg

Identifier: birdcraftfield00wrig (find matches)
Title: Birdcraft : a field book of two hundred song, game, and water birds
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Wright, Mabel Osgood, 1859-1934 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927
Subjects: Birds -- United States
Publisher: New York : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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r size of body. Above lead-blue, somewhat variegated with black. Below whitish. Two dull blue bands across breast. White transverse bands and spots on the short tail. Female has rusty bands across breast.Note: A harsh, rattling cry, as familiar along river banks as the Jays scream in the woods./Season: A common summer resident, which might almost be classed as a resident, as it comes in March, and in mild seasons often winters.Breeds: From Florida to Labrador. Nest: In hollow trees and in earth burrows ; 6-8 feet deep.Eggs: 6-8, crystal white.Bange: North America, south to Panama and the West Indies. The Kingfisher may be easily named, as he sits on hisusual perch, a dead stump or limb jutting over the water,by his large, long-crested head, which gives his body a bob-tailed appearance. Living entirely upon fish, he is drivenfrom small streams to the larger rivers by the closing in ofthe ice, but in open winters I have ^seen this bird in everymonth from November to March. 204 PLATE 51.
Text Appearing After Image:
BELTED KINGFISHER. Length, 12-13. inches. SONGLESS BIRDS. Kingfisher The Kingfisher seizes his prey by diving, and if it issmall and pliable swallows it at once, but if it consists of thelarger and more spiney fish they are beaten to pulp againsta branch before they are swallowed, and even then thestruggles and contortions the bird goes through beforefinally mastering the fish, would be very ludicrous werethey not so evidently distressing. The term halcyon days (days of fair weather) is derivedfrom this birds Latin name. The Kingfisher was oncesupposed to build his nest on a little raft and float out tosea with it, having the power of averting storms during theperiod of incubation. The modern Kingfisher is too wise totry any such experiment; he well knows that no one canfathom our climate or restrain Apollos from watering atunseemly times, so he digs deep into a bank, road cut, orquarry and the precious eggs are laid many feet from theouter air. What a racket the old birds make in the

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