60 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



nature lovers — in a way, but they unfortunately wished to 

 have tangible tokens of the nesting of the Ospreys. One 

 directed his attentions mainly against the birds them- 

 selves, while the other — more humanely perhaps — con- 

 tented himself with removing the clutches of eggs from 

 all those birds which he found nesting. It is easy to make 

 rare, or to exterminate, a bird, but it is most difficult 

 to induce it to take up once more its nesting quarters on 

 these islands. Whether the Osprey will ever re-establish 

 itself successfully remains to be seen. There is no doubt 

 that interest in our rarer birds has increased consider- 

 ably during recent years. But I have grave doubts 

 whether such interest can save the Osprey from sharing 

 the same fate as the Kite in Scotland. Thirty or forty 

 years ago the Kite was comparatively common in Avell- 

 wooded districts, now it is quite extinct north of the 

 Tweed. The Osprey is not yet extinct, though hovering 

 on the border-line, and so it behoves all those who are 

 interested in preserving to us the rarer birds of the coun- 

 try to do their utmost to offer strict, the most strict, 

 protection to the Fish Hawk at all times, when or wherever 

 it may be seen. 



It might possibly be of use to replace the eggs of a 

 Golden Eagle nesting near the former nesting haunt of 

 the Osprey with the eggs of this latter bird. But the 

 procuring of such eggs would be a matter of great diffi- 

 culty, and it is extremely doubtful whether the Eagle's 

 diet would agree with the young Ospreys, even though 

 these were successfully hatched out. It is not impossible, 

 however, that the Osprey may again establish itself with 

 us. Its range is a wide one. It is met with, in suitable 

 localities, through the whole of Europe and Africa, and 

 also inhabits Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the 

 islands of the Pacific. In the south-west of France it 

 appears as a bird of passage, and in April 1914 I saw 



