FISHING OSPREY. 245 



alighting to regale upon its prey, it soared to a prodigious 

 height, and did not descend within our view." 



Little of importance can be added to these notes from the 

 accounts given by more recent observers in Britain, where the 

 bird is so uncommon as to render a continuous account of its 

 habits almost impracticable. In North America, however, 

 where it is very abundant, it has been more satisfactorily ex- 

 amined. " The flight of the Fish Hawk," says Wilson, the 

 Scottish ornithologist of America, " his manoeuvres while in 

 search of fish, and his manner of seizing his prey, are deserving 

 of particular notice. In leaving the nest, he usually flies direct 

 till he comes to the sea, then sails around, in easy curving lines, 

 turning sometimes in the air as on a pivot, apparently without 

 the least exertion, rarely moving the wings, his legs extended 

 in a straight line behind, and his remarkable length, and cur- 

 vature or bend of wing, distinguishing him from all other 

 hawks. The height at which he thus elegantly glides is vari- 

 ous, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty and two hun- 

 dred feet, sometimes much higher, all the while calmly recon- 

 noitering the face of the deep below. Suddenly he is seen to 

 check his course, as if struck by a particular object, which he 

 seems to survey for a few moments with such steadiness that 

 he appears fixed in air, flapping his wings. This object, how- 

 ever, he abandons, or rather the fish he had in his eye has dis- 

 appeared, and he is again seen sailing around as before. Now 

 his attention is again arrested, and he descends with great ra- 

 pidity ; but ere he reaches the surface, shoots off on another 

 course, as if ashamed that a second victim had escaped him. 

 He now sails at a short height above the surface, and by a zig- 

 zag descent, and without seeming to dip his feet in the water, 

 siezes a fish, which, after carrying a short distance, he probably 

 drops, or yields up to the Bald Eagle, and again descends, by easy 

 spiral circles, to the higher regions of the air, where he glides 

 about in all the ease and majesty of his species. At once, from 

 this sublime aerial height, he descends like a perpendicular 

 torrent, plunging into the sea with a loud rushing sound, and 

 with the certainty of a rifle. In a few" moments he emerges, 

 bearing in his claws his struggling prey, which he always 



