368 BULLETIN 16 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



cessful; but if caught otherwise it is turned about in the air. A 

 small fish is carried in one claw, but a large one requires both, one 

 claw in advance of the other. Just before the bird alights, the 

 hinder claw is released to grasp the perch. I have seen an osprey 

 bring to its nest a fish that must have weighed at least four pounds ; 

 I have read that it can carry one of 6, or even 8 pounds, though the 

 latter seems unlikely. 



Having secured its fish, the osprey flies with it to its nest, to some 

 favorite perch, or to an unused nest, to eat it. It holds the fish down 

 under one foot and is very deliberate about eating it; one that I 

 watched waited half an hour before beginning to eat, and at the 

 end of another half hour it had not finished; when I moved it flew 

 away with much of the fish uneaten. 



Another alighted with a fish on a half-built nest but did not 

 start to eat it at once ; when its mate came in and alighted beside it 

 the first bird spread its wings and tail, crouching over the fish to 

 guard it, until its mate flew away ; this was before the eggs were laid 

 and each bird had to fish for itself; eventually it flew away with 

 the fish and half an hour later returned to the nest to eat it. 



Mr. Abbott (1911) quotes Ernest H. Baynes, who had two young 

 ospreys as pets, as follows : 



They often began by picking out the eyes, perhaps because those organs 

 were conspicuous and easily removed. They held their food in their claws, 

 and usually before seizing any part of it, they would "finger" it, so to speak, 

 with their bills, as though feeling for a good hold. They would tear off large 

 pieces, jerk them backwards into the throat and swallow them. They ate 

 every part of the fish except the harder bones. Tough pieces were removed 

 by a steady upward pull, and the ends of bones were twisted off with a pivotal 

 movement such as a man would use to draw a nail with a pair of pincers. 

 Later, they ejected the bones and other indigestible particles in the form of 

 pellets. 



If the osprey ever takes any kind of food but fish it must be on 

 very rare occasions; I can find very little positive evidence of it. 

 It has been reported as eating young ducks, snakes, and frogs. 

 Witherby (1924) says that it has been known to take chickens and 

 that beetles have been found in its stomach. I once found a domestic 

 pigeon in a nest, but this was probably brought in with other mis- 

 cellaneous material so often found in the nests. Dr. Robert C. 

 Murphy told Mr. Abbott a remarkable story of an osprey that was 

 killed by a woman while it was raiding her henyard; I quote it, in 

 part as follows: "The woman told me that on the afternoon of the 

 previous day, which had been rainy, she had been disturbed by a 

 commotion among her chickens, and on going into her yard, had 

 found the Hawk with its talons sunk in a hen, and flapping violently 

 in an attempt to fly off with its prey. She had killed the robber with 



