EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 9 



brick-red, with dark brick-red spots, which are very generally 

 diffused evenly over the whole surface, and very small, occa- 

 sionally forming large blotches. Others, again, have an almost 

 white ground-colour, with more than usually distinct spots and 

 blotches, resembling very much a similar type of the Common 

 Kestrel. In fact the eggs of the Lesser Kestrel go through the 

 same varieties as the Common Kestrel, but are smaller, and are 

 of a paler and more bricky-red, instead of blood-red. In size 

 they vary from 145 to 1'3 inch in length, and from 12 to 103 

 inch in breadth. 



THE OSPREY. 

 (Pandion halidetus.) 



Plate 3, Fig. 5. 



The remote districts of Scotland, the wild solitudes of Highland 

 loch and mountain, were once the favourite home of the Osprey ; 

 but now the numbers have greatly decreased, and only a few pairs 

 resort to the central and northern districts of the Highlands for 

 the purpose of rearing their young. 



Lonely forests within easy access of freshwater lakes are the 

 favourite breeding places of this bird. The nest is enormously 

 large, from three to four feet in diameter, and occasionally as 

 high, and is generally placed on the summit of a pine-tree, one 

 having a dead top being generally preferred. 



Three eggs are the usual number, occasionally two, and still 

 more rarely four. They are deposited by the latter end of April 

 or the first week in May, and vary considerably in colour. 

 Typical specimens are white or yellowish-white in ground-colour, 

 irregularly and very boldly blotched and spotted with rich reddish- 

 brown, which becomes more dense and thickly dispersed over the 

 larger end, sometimes so much so as to hide the ground-colour. 

 Some examples are quite purple ; others are entirely suffused with 

 orange-red ; whilst a very beautiful variety has all the vacant 

 spaces between the bold brown markings blurred and dashed with 

 violet-grey shell-markings. Other specimens have a large blot 

 of colour here and there over the entire surface, or have the 

 colouring matter in a zone or belt round the middle of the shell. 

 Many examples are marked with smaller spots and streaks of 

 colour, and marbled over the entire surface with violet-grey and 



