PANDION HALIiEETUS. 63 



to a peninsula in the midst, I was within thirty or forty yards of an 

 old Osprey's nest, not touched this year, and perhaps not inhabited 

 for some time — even since a boat, which I saw rotting on the north 

 shore, was first put on the loch. The nest was made of sticks mixed 

 with pieces of turfy-looking stuff, and built on the north side of the 

 rock, which might have been six feet high, and was very steep. There 

 were streaks of white dung visible on the nest close to the peak, 

 which rather overtopped it ; there were also one or two patches of 

 Polypodium and patches of close moss or lichen. A likely-looking 

 rock at the far south-west end of the loch I had not time to examine. 



The day after, I passed the loch where I had taken the eggs two 

 days before, and saw the old Osprey sitting on the side of her nest. 



Later in the month (21st May), I stopped at an old castle on a loch 

 to examine an Osprey's nest, in which a man was said to have shot 

 the bird several years previously, but in which, I have been since 

 assured, there were eggs for many seasons afterwards, and that a 

 bird was killed the year before by Mr, St, John's companion, though 

 that gentleman says nothing about it. Indeed I heard that Lord 

 Ellesmere had expressed his regret that it should have been disturbed. 

 The nest seemed in good condition, placed on the highest point of the 

 ruin, and inaccessible except with ropes or a ladder. It was just like 

 the three others I have described. I waited in the ruin for a shot at 

 the Gulls which continued to pass, when I saw an Osprey flying up. 

 It went by at a little distance without attempting to alight, or seeming 

 to take any interest in the nest. 



In a letter which I received in July 1850, from this quarter, I 

 was told that the Osprey had not bred there since 184-8; and my 

 informant added that, up to the time of his writing, he had not seen 

 any flying about that year. Another correspondent about the same 

 time assured me of his belief that there was then only one nest in the 

 county of Sutherland, which been taken at the request of an English 

 gentleman. 



§ 83. Two. — Inverness -shire, 29 April, 1851. 



0. W. tab. H, 



These two beautiful eggs I obtained from a correspondent, 3 May, 

 1851, they being the only result of a ten days' nesting expedition 

 undertaken by him. He took them at three o'clock in the morning 

 of 29th April, 1851, at the ruins of an old castle on an island in an 

 Inverness-shire loch. After walking nearly all night, he reached the 

 spot in the midst of a snow-storm ; and having tied a cord to his life- 



