OSPREYS 



93 



'"^xijj 



Drawing by R. I. Brasher 



AUDITBON'S CARACARA (J nat. size) 

 Perched upright in a cactus, it has a strange grandfatherly appearance 



OSPREYS 



Order Raptores ; suborder Falcoacs ; family Pandionidcc 



EWTON, the English ornithologist, explained that " Ospray " or " Osprey " is 

 " a word said to be corrupted from ' ossifrage,' in Latin Ossijraga, bone-breaker. 

 The Ossifraga of Pliny and some other classical writers seems to have been 

 the Lammergeier; but the name, not inapplicable in that case, has been 

 transferred — through a not uncommon but inexplicable confusion — to 

 another bird which is no breaker of bones, save incidentally those of the fish 

 it devours." 



Three or four species of Ospreys have been described, but most ornithologists 

 are now agreed that there is but a single true species, the European Osprey 

 (Pandion haliactus), of which the American Osprey and the Australian 

 Fishing Eagle are subspecies. In all of these forms the feet are large, ver\' 

 strong, equipped with scale-like processes, and with the claws long, sharp, and powerful; 

 the outer toe is reversible, like that of the Owls; the legs are long and closely feathered. 

 The bill has no tooth, but is much hooked. The plumage is oily and overlapping, the 

 cjuills and tail-feathers pointed and rigid. The wings are long and' pointed, the tail short. 

 The Ospreys, or Fish Hawks, as they are usually called in America, have a very wide 

 distribution, being found ever\-where except in New Zealand, Iceland, Australia, the southern 

 part of South America and, of course, the extreme Arctic and Antarctic regions. Their 

 food consists solely of fish taken alive. Because of this characteristic they are never found 

 far from water in which fash may be had. Since the Ospreys cannot dive, as do the Ducks, 

 the fish they catch are of the varieties found in shallow water or near the surface. 



V^ -ft 



