372 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Fish Hawk was seen to descend with great velocity towards the water, and 

 we thought the poor bird had been struck, and perhaps mortally wounded. 

 It, however, as suddenly checked its downward course, and the Eagle which 

 had as quickly followed it, shot past and far below it ; and now once more the 

 pursued bird made straight for its nesting site, but again was intercepted by 

 the other Eagle, which made desperate by the protractedness of the chase, 

 struck fiercely at it with piercing screams. Baffled on every side, wearied and 

 blinded with the repeated buffettings of the Eagles, the Fish Hawk, with a 

 .scream of rage, let go its prize, which fell head long towards the water. 



The osprey will drive away an eagle or any other bird of prey 

 from its nest and young, but I once saw one attack an eagle several 

 miles away from any nest and long after its young were on the wing. 

 Several times it swooped down, as both birds were circling high in 

 the air, almost striking the eagle ; the latter turned on its back each 

 time and presented its talons, which sent the osprey scaling off in 

 a hurry. Edward Fuller (1891), quoting "a gentleman who wit- 

 nessed a scene of this kind", describes a joint attack on an eagle by 

 a colony of ospreys, as follows : 



They seemed to have formed a sort of colony for mutual protection, and the 

 moment their foe, the Eagle, made his appearance among them, the cry of 

 alarm was raised, and the vigilant colonists, hurrying from all quarters, at- 

 tacked the robber without hesitation, and always succeeded in driving him away. 



There was always a desperate battle first before the savage monarch could 

 be routed, and I have seen them gathered about him in such numbers, whirling 

 and tumbling amidst a chaos of floating feathers through the air, that it was 

 impossible for a time to distinguish which was tlie Eagle, until having got 

 enough of it against such fearful odds, he would fain turn tail, and with most 

 undignified acceleration of flight would dart toward the covert of the heavy 

 forest to hide his baffled royalty, and shake off his pertinacious foes amidst 

 the boughs. 



Dr. Theodore Gill (1901) quotes an interesting account of the 

 persecution of ospreys by man-o'-war-birds, as observed by I. Lan- 

 caster in southern Florida. The ospreys seemed to be in mortal 

 terror of these pirates, who not only made them drop their fish by 

 merely threatening an attack, but sent them, screaming, back to the 

 land in hurried flight. The reason for the ospreys' dread of these 

 black-winged rascals is told in his thrilling account of an attack, by 

 a number of man-o'-war-birds, on an osprey that they had robbed. 

 The poor bird was chased about in the air and all his frantic at- 

 tempts to escape were headed off, until he became so exhausted that 

 lie dropped into the water. Even there his tormentors continued their 

 attack forcing him under the water, until he was finally killed. 



Crows are always on the lookout for unguarded eggs and have 

 been known to puncture and suck osprej^s' eggs; consequently the 

 ospreys always drive them away from their nesting grounds. Owen 

 Durf ee describes such an instance in his notes ; he was "interested, in 

 watching a fish hawk flying along near its nest, to see a crow fly up 



