As they live on fish, they make their home near water, and only travel south when the rivers freeze." "Do they build nests in trees ?" asked Dodo.
"No; they burrow tunnels in the earth of river banks, and put their nests at the end of them, just as the Bank Swallow does; only the Kingfisher's tunnel is much larger, and his nest is not nicely lined with feathers--the young often have no softer bed than a few fish-bones." [Illustration: Belted Kingfisher.] The Belted Kingfisher Length about thirteen inches.
A long, bristling crest; bill longer than head, stout, straight, and sharp.
Leaden-blue above, with many white bands and spots on the short, square tail and long, pointed wings.
Below white, with a blue belt across the breast, and the female with a brown belt also.
A Citizen of North America.
Belonging to no useful guild, but a rather startling, amusing neighbor, who always minds Ins own business and is an industrious fisherman.
"What was the other bird, who cried, 'kuk kuk!' on the outside of the woods?
There, it is calling again! I'm sure that it is a Woodpecker!" "Wrong again--it is a Cuckoo; the Yellow-billed one, I think, for the voice is louder and harsher than that of his Black-billed brother." [Illustration: Yellow-Billed Cuckoo.] "What! a little blue and white bird like the one that bobs out of mother's carved clock at home?
Oh, do let us try to find it! But this bird didn't say 'cuckoo'; it only cackled something like a Hen when she is tired of sitting." "The clock Cuckoo is an imitation of the merry, heedless English bird, who lays her eggs in the wrong nests, as our Cowbird does.

The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is quite different, being long, slender, and graceful, and a very patient parent--even though the nest she builds is rather a poor thing, made of a few twigs piled so loosely in a bush that the pale-green eggs sometimes drop out.
"Let us go over to the brush hedge where the bird seemed to be.

Hush! there he sits upon the limb of a maple.

No--look a little higher up.

He is perfectly still, and acts as if he was half asleep.