A Christmas Kingfisher
Whether we shall be allowed to buy Christmas cards or whether we ought to buy them, I do not but it may not be unpatriotic to confess to a certain gladess that the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust, which is the father of the bird sanctuary, has printed as usual its card of the year, and it has chosen this brightest of all our birds, " The Sky-blue Bird of March," as Tennyson for no very good reason called the king- fisher. The genus is known all over the Empire. The gayest birds I saw on more than one vlei near Capetown were kingfishers, red and blue like ours, and their cousin, the 'laughing jackass, is perhaps the best known of all the Australian birds. What a noise it makes and in what conspicuous places it perches! These Christmas cards of the Trust have virtually bought one sanctuary, and have helped greatly to maintain the beneficent work of watching and guarding the ring of sanctuaries from Scolt Head to Cley, a wild and wonderful bit of country that attracts several species of bird unknown elsewhere. Ornitho- logical pilgrims flock there from all parts of Britain. The address of the Trust, which sells the cards with suitable envelopes at 4s. 9d. a dozen, is Victoria Chambers, Bank Plain, Norwich.
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