THE OSPREY 59 



wards the head of the fish, in other words, " it aims well 

 forward," and I believe the head of the victim is often torn 

 clean off by the impact of the stoop. 



The young are hatched during the first days of June 

 in this country and are ready to leave the eyrie by the 

 end of July. For some little time after this date they 

 remain in their northern haunts, and are taught the art 

 of capturing fish for themselves, but leave for the south 

 before winter has made herself felt amongst the high- 

 lying glens. I hear from Mr. Meade Waldo that a young 

 Osprey — ^whether hatched on these islands is doubtful — 

 spent three weeks in a Yorkshire district in September 

 1912. It became so tame that it was possible to approach 

 and even to stand under the tree in which it was perched. 

 Wood-pigeons and Stock-doves settled fearlessly by it, and, 

 as far as is known, it continued its southern migration un- 

 scathed. This bird may possibly have been hatched 

 from a certain Scottish eyrie where it is said that the 

 birds still nest in security, and it would be interesting 

 to learn whether it eluded its enemies and was able to 

 return in the spring. As far as I am aware, it has never 

 been accurately decided at what age the Osprey commen- 

 ces to breed, but it is doubtful whether it starts house- 

 keeping on its own the season after it is born. 



If ever the Fishing Eagle should decide to return to 

 us, there are several nesting sites in Scotland where its 

 appearance would undoubtedly be much welcomed. In 

 Ross and Sutherland the Osprey was a well-known bird 

 not so many years ago, and I believe there is in these 

 counties at least one loch known as Loch an lasgair, 

 which signifies in the Gaelic tongue. Loch of the Fish 

 Eagle or Osprey. To two men, both of them well-known 

 ornithologists, must be put down the wholesale destruc- 

 tion of the Ospreys and their eggs which took place about 

 the middle of the nineteenth century. They were both 



