FALCONID^E. PANDION CAROL INEN SI S. 57 



As there yet exist differences of opinion among naturalists as to the identity or 

 diversity of the European, American, and Australian species, it is interesting, in this 

 connection, to observe how far their eggs correspond, as well as how far the habits 

 of these birds are similar or dissimilar. In regard to the habits of the Australian 

 bird, our information is not so full as could be wished. Specimens of the eggs of 

 this variety in the collection of the Philadelphia Academy, and in my own, obtained 

 by Mr. Gould, are more spherical and larger than the average of the American. 

 Neither end is perceptibly more pointed than the other. Its ground is a pure 

 cream-color, untinged with red, and the surface is beautifully marked with large 

 blotches of dark brownish-purple, intermixed with a few smaller markings of umber, 

 a dark wine-color, and purple ; colors and combinations of colors such as I have 

 never observed in any European or American specimens. 1 



The European is smaller than the American, is often, but not always, more spher- 

 ical, and is less pointed at the smaller end. Among its varieties is one which is quite 

 common, and is very different from any I have ever observed among at least five 

 hundred specimens of the American which I have examined. Of this variety I have 

 one in my collection, obtained in Scotland, and given me, by Henry F. Walter, Esq. 

 of London. Its length is 2 T 7 g inches, breadth 1{| ; it is oblong and oval in shape, the 

 ground color is a dull white, or very light cream-color, almost unspotted, and only 

 marked by a few faint spots of light umber around the larger end. Another essen- 

 tially resembling this is in the collection of Mr. Walter, which was also taken in 

 Scotland. The Philadelphia Academy possesses a third, and Mr. Charles St. John, 

 in his Tour in Sutherlandshire, describes an Osprey's egg which he took from a nest 

 near Scowrie, in the Highlands of Scotland, which is also very similar to mine, but 

 is like no specimen of the American species. 2 



Another Osprey's egg in my collection, taken near Aarhuus, in Denmark, by 

 Rev. H. B. Tristram, of Castle-Eden, Eng., measures only 2 T 2 g inches in length, 

 shorter by a fourth of an inch than the smallest American, in breadth lif inches ; 

 its ground color is a rich cream, with a slight tinge of claret, and it is marked over 

 its whole surface with large blotches of a beautifully deep shade of chocolate. 



1 The Pandion leucocephalus of Australia is indisputably a distinct species. Unlike our Fish-Hawk, 

 it is nowhere abundant, though widely diffused. Its habits, so far as they are known, are very similar to 

 those of our bird. It constructs a large and conspicuous nest, usually on rocks, occasionally on tree- 

 tops. Mr. Gould, in the Birds of Australia, mentions a nest that was fifteen feet in circumference. In 

 his description of the eggs, besides some marked like the one described above, he also speaks of a com- 

 mon variety which is boldly spotted and blotched with a deep, rich reddish-brown, so dark as to be 

 nearly black, on a yellowish-white ground. No eggs, European or American, correspond exactly with 

 this description. 



2 " We found two beautiful eggs in the nest, of a roundish shape ; the color white, with numerous 



spots and marks of a fine rich red brown Mr. Dunbar, with his usual perseverance, went to this 



nest [the same], and found that the male bird had got another mate [Mr. St. John had shot her former 



mate], and she was already busily employed in sitting on a single egg The two eggs which 



I took from this nest were beautifully marked with fine rich red spots, while the egg now taken by Dun- 

 bar was of a dirty-white color, marked, at one end only, by a splash oflrown, and was also smaller than 

 the others." (Tour in Sutherlandshire, London, 1849, I, 31, 105.) 



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