204 NOTES ON THE 



PANDION HALIAETUS CAROLINENSIS (Gmelin). (364.) 

 AMERICAN OSPREY. 



About the middle of April this remarkable hawk-eagle is seen 

 perching on the projecting limb of a dry tree on the shore of 

 some lake or creek, and more freqiiently the latter, as the fish 

 are making their way to the marshes to spawn. Perhaps his 

 doubtful distinguishment from the eagle has scarcely been set- 

 tled, when down he drops, splash, into the water, out of which 

 he instantly rises with a large fish hanging by its head from 

 his talons, as he sails away to the forest at hand. He never 

 stays near the place where he gets his prey, but from a long 

 cherished memory of the persecutions of the bald eagle, at once 

 buries himself in the coverts of the thick, dark woods while 

 devouring it. I was once in such a forest in search of some 

 small birds, when my attention was arrested by what I sup- 

 posed to be an eagle with a large snake dangling by its head 

 from the talons of one foot. I instantly exchanged a shell 

 loaded with No. 12 shot for one charged with No. 8, and awaited 

 his ai)proach. 



As I stood in a little open space, I expected nothing else than 

 that he would see me and turn his course, but remaining per- 

 fectly still, he continued to come directly towards me. and as- 

 sayed to light on the lower limb of a lofty tree directly over my 

 head, about sixty feet above me, when, just as his unengaged 

 foot grasped the limb, with both wings extended, I pulled 

 trigger, and speedily got myself out of the line of his gravita- 

 tion, when a monstrous Fish Hawk and a bouncing pickerel 

 simultaneously struck the ground at mj' feet. The hawk was 

 too dead to wag a toe or shrug a wing, but the fish flopped and 

 bounded like any other fish just out of water. One, I helped 

 my friends eat for dinner, and the other was a fews daj^s after 

 on the shelves of my private collection of birds, since pre- 

 sented to the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences. 



About the first of May they begin to build their nests, which 

 are placed more commonly in a large tree on the bank of either 

 a large stream or a lake of considerable size. Occasionally 

 they go quite a little distance into the forest, where the trees 

 are very numerous and tall. Except in the hugeness of its 

 proportions the nest does not differ materially from the other 

 large hawks or from the eagles except in being a little less 

 bulky. It consists of large sticks, smaller sticks, grass with 

 bits of turf clinging to it, coarse weeds and fine weeds mixed 

 with somewhat finer grass. 



