THE OSPREY. 



75 



OSPREV NEST IN PENI IBSl • IT li \' 



propensity to appropriate the least 

 likely articles for nest building- or adorn- 

 ment. Mr. Allen has described a num- 

 ber of nests examined at Plum Island. 

 and has given a catalogue of the vari- 

 ous objects he found in different nests. 

 The catalogue is a remarkable one and 

 deserves to be reproduced; it includes 

 "sticks, branches of trees, from three to 

 five feet long, a few ten or twelve feet 

 long', for protecting- the base of the nest : 

 brushwood, barrel staves, barrel heads, 

 and hoops; bunches of seaweed, long 

 masses of kelp, mullein stalks and corn- 

 stalks, laths, shingles, small pieces of 

 boards from boxes; parts of oars, a 

 broken boathook, tiller of a boat, a 

 small rudder, and parts of life pr. ser- 

 vers; large pieces of fish nets, cork and 

 cedar net floats, and pieces of rope, 

 some of them twenty feet in length; 

 charred wood, sticks from hay bales, 

 and short, thick log's of wood; a toy 

 boat, with one sail still attached; 

 sponges, long- strings of conch eggs. 

 and eggs of sharks and dogfish; a small 

 axe with a broken handle, part of a 

 hay rake, old brooms, an old plane, a 

 feather-duster, a deck swab, a blacking- 

 brush and a boot-jack; a rubber boot, 

 several old shoes, an old pair of trou- 

 sers, a straw hat, and a part of an oil 

 skin sou'wester; a long- fishing line, 

 with sinkers and hooks attached, wound 

 on a board; old bottles, tin cans, oyster 

 shells, and large periwinkle shells, one 

 rag- doll, shells and bright colored 

 stones, a small fruit basket, part of an 

 eel pot, a small wornout door mat; 

 wing's of ducks and gulls, sometimse 

 with parts of the skeleton attached, 

 and one fresh crow's wing. A strange 

 feature was the frequent presence of 



bleached hours from the pasture, as the 

 ribs and long l>c mes of sheep and cattle, 

 and especially sheep skulls. Nearly all 

 the old nests had masses of dried cow 

 dung, and large pieces of sod, with the 

 grass still growing. " 



A cautionary paragraph is in order 

 respecting this catalogue. The 

 branches of the trees "ten or twelve 

 feet long" must have been those of the 

 tree in which a nest was built and not 

 carried there. The "eggs" enumerated 

 as those of "sharks and dogfish" were 

 -the ovicapsules of rays, no oviparous 

 scylliorhinoid shark or dogfish occurr- 

 ing along tin- Massachusetts coast. 



John Wolley. who had examined a 

 number of nests, thought that "there 

 is something, in the general appear- 

 ance of the nest, which reminds one of 

 nests of the wood-ants; it is usually in 

 the form of a cone cut off at the top; 

 the sticks project very slightly beyond 

 the sides, and are built up with turf 

 and other compact materials: the sum- 

 mit is of moss, very flat and even; and 



XI ST AT BRISTOL, R. I. 



