130 



THE OSPREY. 



There were two young birds about ten days old and 

 a bad egg in this nest. 



As the Ospreys arrive at Long Island about the 

 middle of March and do not begin to lay much before 

 May, they have time to wander over considerable 

 ground. Thus every spring they come up the Con- 

 necticut River at the time the fish come up to spawn, 

 arriving at Wethersfield between March 20 and April 

 I, and staying sometimes until May i. They easily 

 catch Perch, Black Bass and other small fish, and 

 from the first to the twentieth of April are really 

 abundant. 



About the first week in April, 1895, a pair built a 

 nest in the Hartford south meadows, and used it as 

 a roost until April 27, and probably a few days later. 



though this was a week after most of the Ospreys 

 had gone down the river. I saw them carry fish to 

 this nest on four different days, and there were many 

 fish scales on the ground under it. It was a typical 

 nest, 60 feet from the ground in the top of a large 

 dead poplar, and measured four and one-half feet in 

 diameter and two and one-half feet in thickness. I 

 had hopes that the birds would lay in it the next year 

 — i8g6 — but it was blown down during the winter, 

 and no other nest was built. 



As far as I can ascertain, the Osprey is now but a 

 rare breeder in any part of Connecticut, and though 

 once common along the shore, has never been known 

 to nest more than a few miles from salt water. Thus 

 it seems that even the building of a nest as far as 

 forty miles back from the coast is quite remarkable. 



NOTES FROM MAINE ON THE AMERICAN OSPREY. 



ORA W. KNIGHT, BANGOR, ME. 



LONG may the Osprey live and thrive in our 

 native country. Long may it catch its finny 

 prey along our sea-coast and in the inland 

 lakes and ponds. Far better it would have been if 

 the Osprey had been chosen as the bird of our coun- 

 try instead of that thief 

 and coward the Bald Eagle, 

 who despoils it of so much 

 of its lawful prey. 



The Fish-hawk is found 

 in the vicinity of any body ' 

 of water, which is suffi- ■ 

 ciently large, throughout 

 North America south of the 

 Hudson Bay. In Maine it 

 is a summer resident, but 

 the birds go south in the 

 late fall to spend the win- 

 ter in a more congenial cli- 

 mate. Soon after the ice 

 has left the lakes and ponds 

 at the approach of spring, ospreys nesting in 



the Ospreys return to their northern home. The 

 birds are not characteristic of any faunal area as they 

 have been found nesting from Lower California north 

 to Hudson Bay. 



I have found the birds to be quite brave in defense 

 of their homes, and when one approaches its vicinity 

 they manifest their anxiety by uttering a whistling 

 cry rapidly repeated and sounding like " wheo, wheo, 

 wheo, whew, whew." If one ventures to climb to the 

 nest the birds will make repeated swoops at their 

 head, but always change their course before actually 

 touching one. I have never had the birds actually 

 hit me, although I have had them pass within a very 

 few inches of my head. A friend of mine relates an 

 instance where his son was repeatedly struck by the 

 birds, while climbing to a nest which proved to con- 

 tain large young. This fact probably indicates the 



reason of the extreme pugnacity of the parents in 

 this case. 



Along the Maine coast and about the lakes of the 

 interior of that State, the birds begin house-keeping 

 some time in May, and the nest is placed in various 

 situations. In the vicinity 

 of the lakes and ponds the 

 favorite site seems to be the 

 topmost limbs of some dead 

 tree, long since despoiled 

 of all its lower branches. 

 Here the birds construct a 

 huge, bulky nest of large 

 sticks, limbs, etc., often 

 lined with grass, or with 

 seaweed in case the nest is 

 near the sea coast. Such 

 things as roots of trees, old 

 gunny sacks, and other 

 rubbish often enter into its 

 construction. Several 

 lower CALIFORNIA. bushels of material are of- 



ten used, so that a nest is usually so bulky and tall 

 that it is a matter of some difficulty for a man to get 

 high enough to see its contents. 



Along the coast the nests are placed in smaller 

 trees from a matter of necessity, and are much easier 

 of access. In some cases the nest is even placed on 

 the ground, and near Ilesboro in this State, a pair of 

 birds annually build on a wood-pile to the rear of a 

 cottage belonging to a prominent manufacturer of 

 patent medicines. This gentleman thinks the world 

 of his "Pet Fish-hawks" as he calls them, and under 

 his protection they rear their brood safe from the 

 persecutions of mischievous boys. Prof. Harvey, of 

 Orono, informs me that, while collecting along the 

 coast in 1892, he found an Osprey 's nest placed on 

 the basket-like top of a spindle which was on top of 

 a bidden rock to show its location to mariners. At 



