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The Home-Life of the Osprey. Photographed and described 

 by Chilton G. Abbott, B.A., A.A.O.U. Small 4to.. pp. 54 

 and 32 Mounted Plates. Witherb^^ & Co. 6s. net. 



In this, the third volume of Messrs. Witherbys' " Home-Life " 

 series of bird pictures, the domestic affairs of one of our almost 

 extinct birds are depicted. It is sad to think that one must 

 cross the sea to study intimately the life-history of so 

 noble a species as the Osprey, that was once a conspicuous 

 ornament of our own northern lochs. This fact will not, 

 however, detract from the usefulness of the present work, 

 for although the American bird ranks as a separate geogra- 

 phical race from ours, there is no reason to suppose that it 

 differs, apart perhaps from the diversity of nesting-sites 

 chosen, in any of its habits from that of its Old World repre- 

 sentative. Mr. Abbott has accumulated a large number of 

 facts concerning the nesting-habits of the Osprey , and |)resents 

 them in an interesting form, accompanied by a series of 

 plates reproduced from photographs taken by himself and 

 Mr. H. H. Cleaves, which for interest and technical skill will 

 be the envy of all bird-photographers. Both observations 

 and photographs are the result of many visits to the birds' 

 breeding-places on the coasts of N'ew Jersey, Great Lake in 

 N. Carolina, where there is a colony of thirty pairs, and 

 particularly to Gardiner's Island, New York. The latter, 

 3,000 acres in extent, is, the author points out, an ideal resort 

 for Ospreys, surrounded as it is by waters teeming with fish, 

 while it has remained since 1637 in the ownership of one family 

 who have been the bird's zealous guardians for generations. 

 Even the fishermen who use the island in the course of their 

 labours, take an interest in the birds and do not in the 

 least grudge them the fish they consume. Here, unmolested by 

 human or other enemies, Ospreys to the number of 200 pairs 

 annually resort to rear their young, forming what is probabh^ 

 the largest coloii}^ in the world. They appear to be sociable 

 and amiable birds, the sides of the larger nests being frequently 

 used as nesting-sites by Sparrows and other birds, and although 

 more or less at enmity at one spot with a colony of Terns, it 

 is always the latter who are the aggressors. The chief thing 

 that will strike one on visiting such a colony, or looking at 

 Mr Abbott's photographs, apart from the actual numbers 

 of the birds, is the extraordinary diversity of the nests them- 

 selves and the nesting-sites. Varying from the scantiest 



