OSPREY. 347 



which is then carried, head pointed to the front, as recorded by 

 MacgilHvray and recently confirmed by Messrs. Bahrand Abbott 

 in America ; this position gives less resistance to the wind. A 

 rainbow trout, about a pound weight, which I handled after an 

 Osprey had left it, had deeply scored wounds in its sides. 

 This bird for nearly three weeks harried the trout in an inland 

 reservoir, and was reported to me as an " Eagle." The Osprey, 

 when fishing, sails at about thirty feet above the water, but will 

 soar and circle at a great height. One, which I saw perched 

 upon a small tree by the side of Crummock Water, peered 

 down with slightly uplifted crest, its cheek-stripe clear and 

 distinct. Spreading its wings it flapped slowly across to a rock 

 that rises out of deep water, a favourite stand of Cormorants, 

 and there the white breast with its darker band showed up 

 against the rocks. Then it rose and soared until a mere speck 

 in the sky and, circling with wide sweeps, drifted towards the 

 north. Other birds fail to recognise that the Osprey is no foe 

 and mob it unmercifully ; the fierce terns will swoop upon it 

 until it screams in terror, and on a Cheshire mere one was 

 chased persistently by Swallows. The note of alarm is de- 

 scribed as killy^ killy, killy, but the bird has a loud shrill 

 scream, and Bahr tells that " when carrying a fish, they would 

 call, very appropriately, '■fish^fish^fish.''^^ 



In America the Osprey or " Fish-Hawk" is not only common 

 but gregarious, hundreds sometimes nesting close together. In 

 the Highlands the nest was in a tree, or on a rock or ruin, fre- 

 quently on an islet (Plate 153). In the colony visited by Bahr 

 the nests were anywhere — in stunted maples, on rocks or on the 

 ground. The huge pile of sticks, turf and seaweed is, like the 

 nest of the Kite, a rubbish heap ; Bahr found in one all kinds ' 

 of "flotsam and jetsam," including the skeleton of a Pheasant, 

 the wheel of a child's mail-cart and many corks ; it was lined 

 with seaweed and cow-dung. The two or three eggs are white, 

 handsomely blotched with deep red or purplish brown and violet 



