54 NORTH AMERICAN OOLOGY. PART I. 



The American Fish-Hawk, though quite a distinct species from the European 

 Osprey, is yet so very similar to that bird, that several eminent naturalists still con- 

 tinue to regard the two species as identical. Although the Prince of Musignano, 

 in his Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and North America, published in 

 1838, gave the American bird as a distinct species from the European, Mr. Hewit- 

 son in his British Oology, and Mr. Yarrell in his History of British Birds, insist 

 upon regarding them as the same species, and quote long extracts, written exclu- 

 sively in reference to the American bird, as if they were also applicable to the Eu- 

 ropean species. In many important respects, they are not. Even Mr. Temminck, 

 in the latest edition of his Manual, can find no difference between specimens from 

 all parts of the globe, and Sir "William Jardine, in the notes to his edition of Wil- 

 son, regards the species of both continents, and also the P. leucocephalus of Aus- 

 tralia, as one and the same. The Australian species is even more distinct from both 

 the European and the American, than these are from each other. This reluctance 

 to acknowledge specific differences, of which there can be no well-founded doubts, 

 has led, and must continue to lead, to much confusion and perplexity, especially as 

 American specimens, both of birds and eggs, are indiscriminately figured and de- 

 scribed in books, and ranged in collections, as if identical with the European. 

 What makes this persistence in error the more unaccountable is, that the habits of 

 these species are totally unlike, and these differences of habit have not escaped the 

 notice of naturalists generally. 



The American Fish-Hawk is migratory in its habits, leaving our coasts early in 

 the fall of the year, and returning soon after the close of the whiter. Sir John 

 llichardson states, that the time of its arrival in the fur regions is as early as April, 

 and on the coast it has been noticed in the middle of March. It breeds on the coast 

 of Nova Scotia late in June, on. that of Maine earlier in the same month, and in New 

 Jersey and Maryland in May. In California its nesting is even earlier. 



It constructs its nest almost invariably on the tops of trees, and this habit has 

 been noticed even in its extreme northern resorts. The only instance I have known 

 of a deviation was a nest constructed near West Point, New York, observed by my 

 friend, William H. Edwards, Esq., which was built on a high cliff on the banks of 

 the Hudson River. It is a bold and confiding bird, often constructing its nest 

 near a frequented path, or even upon a highway. Near the eastern extremity of 

 the Wiscasset (Maine) bridge, and directly upon the stage road, a nest of this 

 Hawk has been frequented for several years. 1 It stands upon the top of a low 

 pine-tree, is readily accessible, the tree being easily climbed, and is so near the 

 road that, in passing, the young birds have been frequently heard, in their nest, 

 uttering their usual cries for food. 



The trees upon which the nests of the Fish-Hawk are built, are for the most 

 part dead or dying, a condition attributed by some to the fish-oil contained in their 

 food, by others to the excrements of the birds, or the mass of salt materials of which 

 the nests are generally in a large part constructed. The nests are usually composed 



1 It was abandoned the last season (1855). 



