360 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



trees, the ospreys build their nests on pinnacles of rock or on out- 

 lying rocks, where they are not easily reached. In Lower California 

 they sometimes nest in the giant cacti, which offer firm support 

 and discouragement to climbers; on the islands here they build 

 ground nests on the higher beaches. 



The enormous nests of the osprey are made mainly of large sticks, 

 sometimes 4 feet long or longer and as large as a man's wrist, 

 mixed with sods and almost anything that the birds can pick up. 

 A^ they last for many years, with annual additions, the older 

 material becomes thoroughly rotted, and the nests become heavy 

 enough to break down any but the stoutest trees. 



C. S. Allen (1892) records the following list of material that he 

 personally observed in the nests on Plum Island : 



Brushwood, barrel staves, barrel heads, and hoops ; bunches of seaweed, 

 long musses of kelp, mullein stalks and cornstalks; laths, shingles, small 

 pieces of boards from boxes ; parts of oars, a broken boat-hook, tiller of a 

 boat, a small rudder, and parts of life preservers; large pieces of fish nets, 

 cork, and cedar net floats, and pieces of rope, some of them twenty feet in 

 length ; charred wood, sticks from hay bales, and short, thick logs of wood ; 

 a toy boat, with one sail still attached ; sponges, long strings of conch eggs, 

 and eggs of sharks and dogfish ; a small axe with broken handle, part of a 

 hay rake, old brooms, an old plane, a feather-duster, a deck swab, a black- 

 ing-brush, and a bootjack; a rubber boot, several old shoes, an old pair of 

 trousers, a straw hat, and part of an oil skin "sou'wester" ; a long fish line, 

 with sinkers and hooks attached, wound on a board ; old bottles, tin cans, 

 oyster shells, and large periwinkle shells, one rag doll, shells and bright 

 colored stones, a small fruit basket, part of an eel pot, a small worn out door 

 mat ; wings of ducks and gulls, sometimes with parts of the skeleton attached, 

 and one fresh crow's wing, as already related. A strange feature was the 

 frequent presence of bleached bones from the pasture, as the ribs and long 

 bones of sheep and cattle, and especially sheep skulls. Nearly all the old 

 nests had masses of dried cow dung, and large pieces of sod, with grass 

 still growing. 



Others have noted similar interesting collections of materials in 

 the nests, but Chester C. Lamb (1927) found some of the most unique 

 nests on Natividad Island, Lower California ; he says : "All the nests 

 examined were made partly of Black-vented Shearwater wings, and 

 of one nest seen, all except a part of the foundation was entirely made 

 of wings." 



Eggs. — The osprey lays almost invariably three eggs, occasionally 

 only two and more rarely four. T. E. McMullen's series of 100 sets 

 contains 12 sets of four and none of two. GrifRng Bancroft's series 

 of 49 sets contains 4 sets of four and 11 sets of two. My experience 

 has been that sets of four are less than 5 percent of the total. F. A. E. 

 Starr tells me that he knows of a set of five, and Mr. Allen (1892) 

 once found five in a nest on Plum Island. Reginald Heber Howe, Jr., 

 (1895) reports a remarkable brood of seven young, only four of 



