One summer I went several days in succession to a hedge two fields distant from the nearest brook, and hid on the mound with a gun. I had not been there long before a kingfisher flew past, keeping just dear of the hedge, but low down and close under the boughs of the trees, and going in a direction which would not lead to a brook or pond. This seemed curious; but presently he came back again, uttering the long whistle which is his peculiar note. About an hour, perhaps less, elapsed when he returned again, this time carrying something in his beak that gleamed white and silvery in the sun--a fish. The next day it was the same, and the next. The kingfisher, or rather two of them, went continually to and fro, and it was astonishing what a number of fish they took. Never more than an hour, often less, elapsed without one or other going by. The fish varied much in size, sometimes being very small. They had a nest, of course, somewhere; but being under the idea that they always built near brooks or in the high banks often seen at the back of ponds, it was difficult for me to imagine where the nest could be. To all appearance they flew straight through a small opening in another hedge, at the corner of the two in fact, about two hundred yards distant. Presently it occurred to me that this might be an illusion, that the birds did not really pass through the hedge, but had a nest somewhere in that corner. Just in the very angle was an old disused sawpit, formed by enlarging the ditch, and made some years before for the temporary convenience of sawing up a few heavy `sticks' of timber that were thrown thereabouts. The sawpit, to prevent accidents to cattle, was roughly covered over with slabs of wood, which practically roofed it in, and of course darkened the interior. It was in this sawpit that the kingfishers had their nest in what appeared to be a hole partly excavated by a rabbit. The distance from the hatch and brook was about 400 yards, so that the parent birds had to carry the fish they captured nearly a quarter of a mile. The sawpit, too, was close to a lane used a good deal, though sheltered by a thick hedge from the observation of those who passed.