File:A history of British birds. By the Rev. F.O. Morris (1862) (14728553316).jpg

Identifier: historyofbritish02morr (find matches)
Title: A history of British birds. By the Rev. F.O. Morris ..
Year: 1862 (1860s)
Authors: Morris, F. O. (Francis Orpen), 1810-1893
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: London, Groombridge and Sons
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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a charm for love, aprotection against witchcraft, or a security for fair weather*by many it has been dreaded, by others venerated. It hasbeen supposed to float on the waters in its nest, and duringthe period of its incubation, forty days, days therefore desig-i:iated by its own name as happy and beautiful ones, to bethe cause of every wind being hushed, and every storm calmed;its stuffed skin hmig up, has been recently, and probably isstill thought to act a sort of magnetic part, by always pointingits beak towards the north, or, according to another version,towards the quarter from whence the wind might blow. Itiias agam been imagined to have the power of avertingthunder, revealing hidden treasmes, bestowing beauty on theperson that carried it, and when dead, to renew its ownfeathers at the season of moulting. The accompanying figure is taken from a foreign specimen,which I have had in my collection for some years. For thedescription of the habits of the bu-d, I am indebted toWilson.
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BELTED KINGFISHER. BELTED KI^TGFISnER. 10 This species is by some thought good eating, and isaccordingly exposed for sale in the markets. Two of these birds have been killed in an evidently v;ildcondition, in Ireland, so that, acting on the principles ex-pressed in the introduction to this work, I unliesitatinglygive the present species a place in the British Birds. Onewas shot at Annesbrook, in the coimty of Meath, on the20th. of October, 1845, by Frederick A. Smith, Esq.; andanother on a stream connecting the Lake of Lujgela withLough Dan, by the gamekeeper of — Latouche, Esq., ofLuggela, within the same month. It migrates to the south in the winter, and returns tothe north in the summer to breed. The flight of this bird resembles that of its kinsman ofthe old world. It courses along the windings of the brookor river, sometimes suspending itself over its prey, and atother times settling on a branch to reconnoitre. The note is loud, harsh, and sudden, and is described asresembling

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