52 BIRDS OF P. 12. ISLAND

delighted haunt is the upper river course, where the foliaged hanks make mystic shadows on the moving crystal of the tide. Unseen he sits on some shadowed perch, motionless until the glint of scales passes in the stream below. Then, like a winged javelin, he dashes, and in a moment rises from the silvery spray with an exultant laugh, hearing off his finny prey to his home in the deep—drilled river bank. His nest—hole, seven or eight feet deep, is sunk in the face of a clear. cla)~ bank. The nest, where half a dozen hardy young ones are reared, consists of a few scattered

fish bones linintor the rude clay cavity.

MW ifilnflt-billl‘h Curltuo.

( C(Mqvg/zr cryt/IHyb/zl/m/mm‘)

The Black<hilled Cuckoo is a rare summer \‘isitant that spends but a few short weeks of the leafy months with us. Tennyson sars of the

English Cuckoo :

“To right and left The cuckoo told his name to all the hills.’~