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Updated: May 23, 2025
Has thy triumph utterly cast forgetfulness upon thee, and reckest thou nothing of all that thou spakest when held fast by necessity? whither are fled the oaths by Zeus the suppliants' god, whither are fled thy honied promises? for which in no seemly wise, with shameless will, I have left my country, the glories of my home and even my parents things that were dearest to me; and far away all alone I am borne over the sea with the plaintive kingfishers because of thy trouble, in order that I might save thy life in fulfilling the contests with the oxen and the earthborn men.
The blue heron in its solitary and stately watchfulness is occasionally seen, and again etches itself like a Japanese picture against the pure blue of the sky. The American bittern is also seen rarely. Kingfishers are found, both on the lakes and streams.
When fresh killed, the contrast of the vivid blue with the rich colours of the plumage is remarkably striking and beautiful. Handsome woodpeckers and gay kingfishers, green and brown cuckoos with velvety red faces and green beaks, red-breasted doves and metallic honeysuckers, were brought in day after day, and kept me in a continual state of pleasurable excitement.
Because of the many kingfishers flying about it was called Kingfisher Canyon, and a point where they were especially numerous was named Bee-hive. At the foot of this third short canyon the rocks ran together in a forbidding manner, and out of the depths beyond came a roar, just as one outside of the jungle might hear the lion's note within.
As with the kingfishers and sheldrakes, each pair of birds seem to have their own pond or portion; but by what old law of the waters they find and stake their claim is yet to be discovered. There were two little ones in the nest when I first found it; and I used to watch them in the intervals when nothing was stirring in the underbrush near my hiding place.
An' kingfishers, an' rabbits comin' down to drink, an', maybe, a deer." "And meadowlarks in the pasture," Saxon added. "And mourning doves in the trees. We must have mourning doves and the big, gray tree-squirrels." "Gee! that valley of the moon's goin' to be some valley," Billy meditated, flicking a fly away with his whip from Hattie's side. "Think we'll ever find it?"
Six different kinds of woodpeckers and four kingfishers were found here, the fine hornbill, Buceros lunatus, more than four feet long, and the pretty little lorikeet, Loriculus pusillus, scarcely more than as many inches.
A long hungry sniff of the rank fishy odor that pours out of a kingfisher's den, a keen look all around to be sure the old birds were not returning, and he vanished like a shadow. "There is one brood of kingfishers the less," I thought, with my glasses focused on the hole. But scarcely was the thought formed, when a fierce rumbling clatter sounded in the bank.
"Would it be a big bird eagle or vulture?" said Mark. "I saw one fly over." "Might be," replied the major. "I'm not naturalist enough to say; and if I was, I daren't, Mark, for what a bird will do in one country it will not in another." Mark stared at him. "Well, I mean this, Mark, my lad. At home, in England, the kingfishers sit on twigs over the streams, and dive into the water and catch fish.
Great trees overhung it, dark waters swirled swiftly but quietly round the base of a great rock jutting out into it; little bubbles of froth glided dreamily across it and burst on its edges; kingfishers dropped, stone-like, into it from the limbs of a dead sycamore, and the low, deep murmurs of the flood, as it hurried by, whispered inarticulately of mysteries too deep for the mind of man to comprehend.
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