renew their eternal warfare with the billows. It is to this Milton alludes in the following quaint but beautiful lines, from his unrivalled Ode on the Nativity. "The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding o'er the charmed wave." The flight of the kingfisher is extremely rapid. Destined to live by destroying other creatures, its leading characteristics are patience, perseverance, and courage. Perched on a slight branch overhanging a stream, it will remain a great length of time waiting the passage of its prey beneath. Sometimes moving rapidly along the banks, it detects the fish with its keen glance, and seizes them with the utmost dexterity. The eagerness with which it darts into the water after its prey, is quite extraordinary. At other times it will skim swiftly over the surface of the water, uttering a sharp cry, and seizing such fish as may come within its reach. Cuvier thus describes the bird: "The European kingfisher is as large as a sparrow: greenish above, waved with black: a broad band of the finest aqua-marine blue prevails along the back. The under part, and a band on each side the neck are reddish." This, however, is not an accurate description of the kingfisher which frequents our streams, and which has no black on any part of its plumage. THE KINGFISHER. Did you never the royal kingfisher see, The emerald shines on his kingly head, An emerald mantle is on his back, And a lovely band of the brightest blue, The king of the fishing tribe is he, Perhaps you love, with your rod in hand, 164 CHAPTER II. THE THIRD ORDER. SCANSORES OR CLIMBERS. This order is composed of birds whose external toe is directed backwards, like the thumb, whereby they have a more solid support, of which some of the genera avail themselves, by hanging and climbing on the trunks of trees. Hence they have been named, in common, climbers, (scansores ;) although, strictly speaking, the term does not apply to them all; and many birds climb without belonging to this order, by the arrangement of the toes, as the creepers and nuthatches. The birds proper to this order build, in general, in holes of old trees. Their flight is middling. Their food, like that of the Passeres, consists of insects and fruits, according as their bill is more or less strong. Some, as the woodpeckers, have peculiar means of obtaining their food.-Cuvier. ORDER SCANSORES. The Green Woodpecker. Picus Viridis. THIS is one of those shy birds which is not very often seen, except by those whose business or |