I t was formerly believed, that during the time-the Halcyon or
Kingfisher was engaged in hatching hér eggs, the water in;
kindness to her remained, so smooth.and. calm, that the mariner
mighkventure on the sea with the happy .certainty óf not being-
exposed to storms or tempests; "this perio d was therefore
called by Pliny, and Aristotle the Halcyon Days. I t was
even supposed that.'thé Kingfisher had power to quell the
storm ; and in-reference to the dangerous situation o f tber
female when sitting in her water-bound, niest, Dryden, in his'
translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, has the lines— ,,
------— ------- “ Her ske at length is. kind,-r^
Calms every storm, and hushes every wind.
Theocritus, a Greek pastoral- poet,_as translated by FawkéSf
has also the following .lin ê ^ f
“ May Halcyónk-smooth the-waves, and calm Urn. seas,- r
W . Browne, as quoted by Mr. Fennell,-writes—*
f ’6‘ Blow,"but gently blow fayre winde, -
From the forsaken shore,-,
And be as to the Halcyon kinde,
we have ferried o’er,
Shakspeare refers rto the “supposed influence d£~tb& Kingfisher
in the First Part of Henry the- Sixth-^ ,^
“ Expect Saint Martin’^ summer, halcyon.days.
Cowper is perhaps the latest poet who has r.e-few’od.-^thes.p
fancies in the following couplet— M
“ As firm as therodrand as$j|m as the flqqdy
Where the peace-loving Halcyon deposits her brood/ '■
Bu t this was not the only power attributed to. the Kingfisher^
it was also supposed that the dead bird carefully' balanced
and suspended by a single thread, would always turn its
beak towards that point of the compass from which the wind
blew. Storer, in his' poem on the life, &c. of Cardinal
Wolsey; says—
as a Halcyon, with her turning brest,
■ Pemonstrates wind from wind; and east from west.”
Kent, in Shakspeare’s King Bear, speaks of rogues who
_ Tr-!—^ t u r n their Halcyon beaks,
.With every gale and’ vary t> f theif masters,”
After Shakspeare’s allusion,- Marlowe, in his Jew of Malta,
has- the lines^r-f?Ï- ' Put hov/ now stands the wind 1 \
1 lido what cöfijqr peers my Halcyon’s bill?” -
And Mrs, Charlotte Smith, in her Natural History of Birds,'
iay&^>‘ I havé once or twice seen a stuffed bird of this species
hung up to. the . beam of a cottage ceiling, and imagined, that
thé -beauty of the fea/tlaefsÄ had -recommended ff tö this sad
tjfiy^on inquiry,. I.was assured that it served
th e purpose pf - a; weather vane ; and' though sheltered from
thé immediate infLue'n.ce :>of the wind, never failedr to show
•every change by turning its beak to the quarter whence, the
wind bldW'.Bbif
The KingfishërdS'-generally distributed over Gréat Britain;
but is nöt .so^hiimerous in Scotland as it appears to be in
drelan'd,' Müller includes it among the. birds of Penmafk;
but Considers- it rare: it* does not appear to be found in
Sweden or Norway, nor in the more northern parts of Scandinavia.
Pennant say^ it inhabits the temperate parts of
'Russia and ^Siberia*. I t is found' in Germany; Holland,
F r ä n ||| Spain, Provence, Italy, and the Morea. Mr. Hugh
Strickland says jit is Common in Smyrna; the - Zoological
Igjtaciety have received- specimens from Trebizond, and it in~
habits th-é' country between the Black and the Caspian seas.
In Africa this species is found as far south as Senegal.
p 2