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Kingfisher's Kindergarten
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A Little Brother to the Bear |
by William J. Long |
Mooweesuk the Coon is called the bear's little brother by both Indians and naturalists, because of the many ways in which he resembles the 'big prowler in the black coat.' An absorbing chapter on the coon's secret habits begins this volume, followed by stories about the woodcock, the wildcat, the toad, and many other animals. Ages 9-12 | 280 pages |
$11.95 |
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KINGFISHER'S KINDERGARTEN
[179]
OSKOMENOS the kingfisher still burrows in the earth like his
reptile ancestors; therefore the other birds call him
outcast and will have nothing to do with him. But he
cares little for that, being a clattering,
rattle-headed, self-satisfied fellow, who seems to do
nothing all day long but fish and eat. As you follow
him, however, you note with amazement that he does some
things marvelously well—better indeed than any
other of the Wood Folk. To locate a fish accurately in
still water is difficult enough when one thinks of
light refraction; but when the fish is moving, and the
sun glares down into the pool and the wind wrinkles its
face into a thousand
[180] flashing, changing furrows and ridges,—then the
bird that can point a bill straight to his fish and hit
him fair just behind the gills must have more in his
head than the usual chattering gossip that one hears
from him on the trout streams.
This was the lesson that impressed itself upon me when
I first began to study Koskomenos; and the object of
this little sketch, which records those first strong
impressions, is not to give our kingfisher's color or
markings or breeding habits—you can get all that
from the bird books—but to suggest a possible
answer to the question of how he learns so much, and
how he teaches his wisdom to the little kingfishers.
Just below my camp, one summer, was a trout pool.
Below the trout pool was a shaded minnow basin, a kind
of storehouse for the pool above, where the trout
foraged in the early and late twilight, and where, if
you hooked a red-fin delicately on a fine leader and
dropped it in from the crotch of an overhanging tree,
you might sometimes catch a big one.
[183] Early one morning, while I was sitting in the tree, a
kingfisher swept up the river and disappeared under the
opposite bank. He had a nest in there, so cunningly
hidden under an overhanging root that till then I had
not discovered it, though I had fished the pool and
seen the kingfishers clattering about many times. They
were unusually noisy when I was near, and flew
up-stream over the trout pool with a long, rattling
call again and again—a ruse, no doubt, to make me
think that their nest was somewhere far above.
I watched the nest closely after that, in the intervals
when I was not fishing, and learned many things to fill
one with wonder and respect for this unknown,
clattering outcast of the wilderness rivers. He has
devotion for his mate, and feeds her most gallantly
while she is brooding. He has courage, plenty of it.
One day, under my very eyes, he drove off a mink and
almost killed the savage creature. He has well-defined
fishing regulations and enforces them rigorously, never
going beyond his limits and permitting no poaching on
his own minnow pools. He
[184] also has fishing lore enough in his frowsy head—if
one could get it out—to make Izaak Walton's
discourse like a child's babble. Whether the wind be
south or north-east, whether the day be dull or bright,
he knows exactly where the little fish will be found,
and how to catch them.
When the young birds came, the most interesting bit of
Koskomenos' life was manifest. One morning as I sat
watching, hidden away in the bushes, the mother
kingfisher put her head out of her hole and looked
about very anxiously. A big water-snake lay stretched
along a stranded log on the shore. She pounced upon
him instantly and drove him out of sight. Just above,
at the foot of the trout pool, a brood of sheldrake
were croaking and splashing about in the shallows.
They were harmless, yet the kingfisher rushed upon
them, clattering and scolding like a fishwife, and
harried them all away into a quiet bogan.
On the way back she passed over a frog, a big, sober,
sleepy fellow, waiting on a lily-pad for his sun-bath.
Chigwooltz
[185] might catch young trout, and even little birds as they
came to drink, but he would surely never molest a brood
of kingfishers; yet the mother, like an irate
housekeeper flourishing her broom at every corner of an
unswept room, sounded her rattle loudly and dropped on
the sleepy frog's head, sending him sputtering and
scrambling away into the mud, as if Hawahak the hawk
were after him. Then with another look all round to
see that the stream was clear, and with a warning
rattle to any Wood Folk that she might have overlooked,
she darted into her nest, wiggling her tail like a
satisfied duck as she disappeared.
After a moment a wild-eyed young kingfisher put his
head out of the hole for his first look at the big
world. A push from behind cut short his contemplation,
and without any fuss whatever he sailed down to a dead
branch on the other side of the stream. Another and
another followed in the same way, as if each one had
been told just what to do and where to go, till the
whole family were sitting a-row, with the rippling
[186] stream below them and the deep blue heavens and the
rustling world of woods above.
That was their first lesson, and their reward was near.
The male bird had been fishing since daylight; now he
began to bring minnows from an eddy where he had stored
them, and to feed the hungry family and assure them, in
his own way, that this big world, so different from the
hole in the bank, was a good place to live in, and
furnished no end of good things to eat.
The next lesson was more interesting, the lesson of
catching fish. The school was a quiet, shallow pool
with a muddy bottom against which the fish showed
clearly, and with a convenient stub leaning over it
from which to swoop. The old birds had caught a score
of minnows, killed them, and dropped them here and
there under the stub. Then they brought the young
birds, showed them their game, and told them by repeated
examples to dive and get it. The little fellows were
hungry and took to the sport keenly; but one was timid,
and only after the mother had twice dived and brought
up a
fish— [187] which she showed to the timid one and then dropped back
in a most tantalizing way—did he muster up
resolution to take the plunge.
A few mornings later, as I prowled along the shore, I
came upon a little pool quite shut off from the main
stream, in which a dozen or more frightened minnows
were darting about, as if in strange quarters. As I
stood watching them and wondering how they got over the
dry bar that separated the pool from the river, a
kingfisher came sweeping up-stream with a fish in his
bill. Seeing me, he whirled silently and disappeared
round the point below.
The thought of the curious little wild kindergarten
occurred to me suddenly as I turned to the minnows
again, and I waded across the river and hid in the
bushes. After an hour's wait Koskomenos came stealing
back, looking carefully over the pool and the river,
and swept down-stream with a rattling call. Presently
he came back again with his mate and the whole family;
and the little ones, after seeing their parents swoop,
and
[188] tasting the fish they caught, began to swoop for
themselves.
The first plunges were usually in vain, and when a
minnow was caught it was undoubtedly one of the wounded
fish that Koskomenos had placed there in the lively
swarm to encourage his little ones. After a try or
two, however, they seemed to get the knack of the thing
and would drop like a plummet, bill first, or shoot
down on a sharp incline and hit their fish squarely as
it darted away into deeper water. The river was wild
and difficult, suitable only for expert fishermen. The
quietest pools had no fish, and where minnows were
found the water or the banks were against the little
kingfishers, who had not yet learned to hover and take
their fish from the wing. So Koskomenos had found a
suitable pool and stocked it himself to make his task
of teaching more easy for his mate and more profitable
for his little ones. The most interesting point in
this method was that, in this case, he had brought the
minnows alive to his kindergarten, instead of killing
or wounding them, as in the first
[189] lesson. He knew that the fish could not get out of the
pool, and that his little ones could take their own
time in catching them.
When I saw the family again, weeks afterwards, their
lessons were well learned; they needed no wounded or
captive fish to satisfy their hunger. They were full
of the joy of living, and showed me, one day, a curious
game,—the only play that I have ever seen among
the kingfishers.
There were three of them, when I first found them,
perched on projecting stubs over the dancing riffles,
which swarmed with chub and "minnies" and samlets and
lively young red-fins. Suddenly, as if at the command
go! they all dropped, bill first, into the
river. In a moment they were out again and rushed back
to their respective stubs, where they threw their heads
back and wriggled their minnows down their throats with
a haste to choke them all. That done, they began to
dance about on their stubs, clattering and chuckling
immoderately.
It was all blind to me at first, till the game was
repeated two or three times, always
[190] starting at the same instant with a plunge into the
riffles and a rush back to goal. Then their object was
as clear as the stream below them. With plenty to eat
and never a worry in the world, they were playing a
game to see which could first get back to his perch and
swallow his fish. Sometimes one or two of them failed
to get a fish and glided back dejectedly; sometimes all
three were so close together that it took a deal of
jabber to straighten the matter out; and they always
ended in the same way, by beginning all over again.
Koskomenos is a solitary fellow, with few pleasures,
and fewer companions to share them with him. This is
undoubtedly the result of his peculiar fishing
regulations, which give to each kingfisher a certain
piece of lake or stream for his own. Only the young of
the same family go fishing together; and so I have no
doubt that these were the same birds whose early
training I had watched, and who were now enjoying
themselves in their own way, as all the other Wood Folk
do, in the fat, careless, happy autumn days.
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