Dear Children:
I shall soon arrive from the south. I hear that all the birds are going
to tell stories to the boys and girls.
I have never talked much with children myself for I never really cared
for people. They used to say that the dead body of a Kingfisher kept
them safe in war and they said also that it protected them in lightning.
Even now in some places in France they call us the moth birds, for they
believe that our bodies will keep away moths from woolen cloth.
I wish that people would not believe such things about us. Perhaps you
cannot understand me when I talk. You may think that you hear only a
child's rattle.
Listen again! It is I, the Kingfisher. That sound is my way of talking.
I live in the deep woods. I own a beautiful stream and a clear, cool
lake. Oh, the little fish in that lake are good enough for a king to
eat! I know, for I am a king.
You may see me or some of my mates near the lake any pleasant day.
People used to say that we always brought pleasant weather. That is a
joke. It is the pleasant weather that always brings us from our homes.
When it storms or rains we cannot see the fish in the lake. Then we may
as well stay in our nests.
My home once belonged to a water rat. He dug the fine hall in the gravel
bank in my stream. It is nearly six feet long. The end of it is just the
kind of a place for a nest. It is warm, dry and dark. In June my wife
and I will settle down in it. By that time we shall have the nest well
lined with fish bones. We shall put in some dried grass too. The fish
bones make a fine lining for a nest. You know we swallow the fish whole,
but we save all the bones for our nest.
I shall help my wife hatch her five white eggs and shall try in every
way to make my family safe.
Please tell the people not to believe those strange things about me and
you will greatly oblige,
A neighbor,
THE KINGFISHER.
[Illustration: KINGFISHER.
Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]