58 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



unnerved by this episode that, it is good to relate, he 

 abandoned his attempt on the eyrie and was thankful to 

 get to the ground in safety. It is curious and interesting 

 how often the ruins of some ancient castle are chosen 

 as the site for an eyrie, and a nest has even been found 

 built upon the remains of a disused shooting lodge. 



The period of incubation is said to be four weeks, 

 though I am inclined to suspect that the eggs are brooded 

 upon for more than thirty days before the young are 

 hatched. These are at first clad in a coat of down, darker 

 considerably than that worn by a baby Golden Eagle, 

 and, like the latter, are provided with a small knob on the 

 upper mandible to enable them the more easily to cut 

 their way through the imprisoning shell when the day 

 comes for their arrival into the wide world. It is stated 

 in books of the eighteenth century that the mother Osprey 

 puts her young through a truly Spartan test soon after 

 they are born. She compels them to look straight at the 

 sun, and the one which first weeps during this formid- 

 able ordeal is ruthlessly killed and thrown from the 

 eyrie. This noteworthy statement was made, in all 

 probability, to account for the disappearance of one of 

 the young birds at an early age. The quaint theory 

 above mentioned is, as far as I know, without foun- 

 dation, but all the same this disappearance of one chick 

 from the nest of a bird of prey is a fact for which 

 no really satisfactory explanation has yet been given. 

 The young Ospreys, which are hatched with open 

 eyes, are fed entirely on fish ; and when they are in 

 their younger stages the parent bird is careful to give 

 them only small and tender morsels, torn off with her 

 bill. Mullet is the favourite article of food, but where 

 this is not procurable, pike, carp, grilse, and trout are 

 taken ; and an Osprey is recorded as having captured an 

 eel two feet long. The Osprey seems to strike well to- 



