356 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The region with Avhich I am most familiar, southern Massachu- 

 setts and eastern Rhode Island, is largely an open farming coun- 

 try, with considerable heavily vrooded territory scattered through 

 it, with numerous streams and small lakes and with many large 

 residential estates near the shores of the salt-water baj-s. Formei'ly 

 many osi:)re3^s nested in the Avooded sections, far from hinnan habi- 

 tations. Tlie nests were usually placed in the largest trees they 

 could find, tall solitary white pines, or large oaks on the edges of the 

 woods, and generally not far from some lake or stream, where the 

 fishing was good. Comparatively few Avere more or less hidden 

 within the woods, in almost any kind of large tree, or on the lop 

 of some large dead stub. These woodland nests have nearly all 

 disappeared, except in a few large groves near the shores, where 

 they are protected, but even these are decreasing. 



The nests in the open farming country and on residential estates 

 seem to be the most successful and to last the longest. Here the 

 ospreys seem to have no special preference for any species of tree 

 and are not at all particular as to its height. Security and a good 

 food supply seem to be all that they require. Sycamores, locusts, and 

 elms figure most prominently in my notes; but we have also found 

 nests in various oaks, ashes, tupelos, maples, red cedars, wild cher- 

 ries, willows, pines, and even apple trees. Many of the nests are in 

 partially, or wholly, dead trees ; although the birds sometimes build 

 in a dead tree, I believe that in most cases the tree is killed by the 

 weight of the nest or by the saline character of the nesting material 

 and of the birds' food; I have known of many cases where the tree 

 has died and fallen after the ospreys had built in it. Some of the 

 occupied nests have been in trees standing in water; one such in a 

 pond was so Ioav that it could be looked into from a boat. 



Many nests are built on poles near houses (pi. 97), a cart wheel 

 or some other support having been attached to the top of it to hold 

 the nest. Similar supports are often placed in trees by the land- 

 owners, who protect the ospreys and encourage them to nest near 

 their houses or on their farms as picturesque features or because 

 they are supposed to drive away other hawks. Ospreys often build 

 on telegraph or telephone poles, where the cross arms and wires give 

 good support, much to the annoyance of the linemen who have to 

 remove the nests. Harry S. Hathaway (1905) says that "one pair 

 in Bristol was so persistent in 'sticking' to the same pole after it 

 had been pulled down that they built it up four times, and it was 

 only after a 'ground' had been made by the wet mass in a rain, 

 which set the pole and nest afire, that they deserted it." 



A better location, recently adopted, is the steel framework of a 

 high-tension-line tower. Nests are also built occasionally on build- 

 ings or on unused chimneys. Mr. Forbush (1927) tells a remark- 



