GO 



THE OSPREY. 



THE OSPREY OR FISHHAWK; ITS CHARACTERISTICS AND HABITS.— III. 



By Theodore Gii.i.. Washington, D. C. 



Continued from Vol. /',/>. /-'. 



Audubon never saw a bird carried underwater 

 by its would-be prey. 



OTHEK FOOD. 



Mr. Gentry, in his Life Histories of the Birds 

 of Pennsylvania (ii. 278,1 has recorded that "the 

 reptiles and batrachians, which infest the 

 swamps win-rein it breeds, do not escape its 

 vigilance," and even specifically adds that cer- 

 tain frogs {•• Rana clamitans, R. halecina, A', 

 sylvatica") and snakes ("Euteenia sirtalis, Chlor, - 

 soma vernalis, Pituophis melanoleucus, and 

 others") are occasionally eaten. Perhaps the or- 

 dinary ornithologist may suspect that this list 

 may be the result of assumption rather than ob- 

 servation by the author, inasmuch as no other 

 h;is been witness to such a variety of diet. 



It is possible, however, that Mr. Gentry may 

 not have gone far astray in the assumption. 

 Certain it is that the bird does not entirely dis- 

 dain reptilian food. It has been seen < in various 

 occasions to pounce down on a water snake 

 directing his tortuous course along the surface 

 of the water and to bear it off in his talons. In 

 the September (1900) number of the Osprey (v, 

 p. 6. i Professor Bartsch has recorded the result 

 of his own observations. In the Mississippi 

 valley he found it less prone to a cattish diet 

 than about Washington: there he often noticed 

 mie seeking a dead limb with a small water- 

 snake in its tal< mis. 



PERVERSION OF APPETITE. 



Several instances have been recorded of tres- 

 pass on the poultry preserves of man. Mr. 

 John Harvie Brown has referred to several in- 

 stances in which individuals were accused of 

 such forages (Zoologist, 1868, p. 1484; 1874. p. 

 3996.) Mr. A. J. Clark-Kennedy has given still 

 better evidence. "In the spring of 1871, a rail- 

 way porter, near Tunbridge, [England. 1 had 

 no less than eleven chickens carried off by an 

 Osprey. His wife happened one day to hear a 

 great commotion among the poultry in the 

 garden, and, rushing out of the house, was just 

 in time to see a large Hawk flying off with one 

 of her chickens in its claws. The same thing 

 happened several times, the bird returning' twice 

 or even thrice a day for his unwonted meal." 

 At last her husband "borrowed a gun. and as 

 evening drew on he awaited his unwelcome 

 visitor. Nor had he long to wait, for the old 

 hen soon made him aware of the enemy's ap- 

 proach by her loud and continuous cackling, as 

 she gathered her remaining young ones under 

 her wings. So intent was the Osprey on his 

 prey that he never noticed the porter, who, as 

 the bird made his final stoop, let drive, and 

 stretched it dead beside its intended supper." 

 The Osprey was positively identified and "set 

 up in a most life-like attitude by Mr. B. Bates, 



naturalist, of Eastbourne." (Zoologist, 1874, p. 

 3996, 3997.) 



Montagu also has recorded (in his Ornitholo- 

 gical Dictionary of British Birds) the pursuit 

 and capture of a moderate sized bird by an 

 < Isprey. "An Osprey was seen to stoop and 

 carry off a young and half-grown duck from the 

 surface of the water, at Slapton Ley. In the 

 struggle, the duck fell from the talons of the 

 Eagle, but was recovered before it reached the 

 water." The question may be raised in this 

 case whether a misidentification may not have 

 been made. The bird was not captured or seen 

 by Montagu. 



A bird may acquire a depraved appetite as well 

 as man. But such a trait is abnormal for the 

 Osprey. Indeed, in some parts of the United 

 States, the bird is protected because it is sup- 

 posed not only to refrain from molesting 

 poultry. I hi t to be a safeguard for them against 

 typical birds of prey. 



Willi such experience, even in spite of the ap- 

 pearance of good faith and of positive ideu i- 

 ticatiou of the culprits as described by the 

 witnesses of tin- alleged facts, it may be held 

 there is still a possibility that there was some 

 (law in the line of evidence which the accounts 

 were intended to exhibit. 



BEHAVIOUR AFTER Ml' U S. 



Its behaviour after a meal probably varies 

 with mood and conditions. 



(in the one hand, according to Audubon, 

 "when it has satisfied its hunger, it does not, 

 like other Hawks, stay perched until hunger 

 ag'ain urges it forth, but usually sails about at a 

 great height over the neighbouring waters." 



On theother hand, it was the belief of Seebohm 

 that, "like most raptorial birds, the Osprey. 

 when its meal is finished, takes its perch, 

 usually on some post in the water or treestump 

 on the bank, where it sits, seemingly uncon- 

 scious of danger, to digest its meal, and where it 

 is easily approached, its curious appearance and 

 large size proving but allurements to its doom." 



Doubtless both authors were right in the re- 

 cord of observations, but both wrong in assum- 

 ing invariability of procedure. 



RETURN OF WANDERERS TO SUMMER QUARTERS. 



The time and return of the Osprey to its 

 summer home depends on the progress of the 

 seasons. Audubon has stated the facts with 

 tolerable correctness in a communication to 

 Macgillivray in a little known work— The Rapa- 

 cious Birds of Great Britain by Alexander Mac- 

 gillivray: copies of the work, indeed, are so un- 

 common in Washington that the only one 

 known to be found in the city is that in the 

 library of the present writer. As Audubon's 

 letter is equally unknown to most, its republi- 



