THE OREGON NATURALIST. 
125 
it is about the size of and grea:'y resembles a 
Musk rat, without any tail. The color is 
brownish; a little lighter on the under side. It’s 
technical character shows it to be related to the 
Beaver yet to be almost as much a Marmot. 
Also that it has peculiarities of it’s own, suflic- 
ient to found a family, Hap/lodontidae. 
BERNARD J, BRETHERTON. 
A RARE SIGHT 
It was in the fall of 1884 that a friend and 
myself were taking arun down the ‘‘Eastern 
shore” (that is the Peninsula lying between the 
Chesapeak Biy and the Atlantic Ocean) that 
we chanced to stop off at the old town of 
Eastville, county seat of Accomack Co, 
Virginia, We stopped over night at this typical 
southern village, and the next morning being 
pleasant, we thought, as the Bay was only 
miles across coun y, we would 
It was a delightful walk, 
and short cuts through 
about three 
walk over there, 
following cowpaths 
the fields and woods and passing many old 
darkey habitations in the woods with only a 
show ofaclearing, but it was there that the 
g~apes and peaches were in perfection and we 
were not slow to fill our pockets as well as 
our mouths, 
There was nothing particularly new to me, 
in this part of the country, but to my friend, 
who had never been so far south as Mason and 
Dixon’s line, everything seemed so different 
from what he had expected, but on the whole 
he was enthusiastic over the peaches and grapes 
and climate; but the soil and grass he said was 
a dead failure, he never wanted to live in a 
country where they could not raise grass. 
We were about half way across to the Bay, 
and while passing along the edge of a heavy 
pine wood [ heard the shrill piping cry of an 
Osprey or Fish-Hawk, and very naturally 
stopped to see whence it came and the cause. 
I soon saw the bird and took in the situation 
ataglance, I noticed that the Osprey had a 
fish in its claws and was making frantic efforts 
to reach the higher region, all the time uttering 
its piping cries, but as yet I could see nothing 
to alarm the bird; but the Osprey knew that 
there was a robber lying in wait for him, fo: 
presently there came sailing out of the woods 
a Bald Eagle and in apparently easy, graceful 
curves, kept 
until he was very close to the Ospreyaneal 
mounting higher and_ higher 
thought; still, he might not have been as close 
as I supposed, for they went to an immense 
height, but the air being perfectly clear I could 
see them very plainly. 
that the Eagle had got to about the same level 
It seemed however, 
as the Osprey, when I saw a small silvery 
streak passing through the clear blue sky and 
close behind ita dark ball. I was hardly able to 
realize that the streak, wes the fish that the 
Osprey had been carrying and the dark ball 
the Eagle, but such was the fict for I soon saw 
its 
claws, and the Osprey still circling. The move- 
the Eagle soaring away with the fish in 
ment was made so quickly that I did not see 
the fish until apparently, a hundred feet from 
the Osprey after he had dropped it, and it did 
not look as though it had dropped more than 
two or three hundred feet before the Eagle had 
it. The Eagle no doubt had been sitting around 
waiting for just such an Opportunity to get a 
meal, that the Osprey 
would relinquish the fish rather than defend its 
legal plunder, I had read ix Wilson’s 
Audubon’s Natural Histories of just such an 
being well aware 
and 
incident, but could hardly understand how an 
eagle could go so much faster in a descent than 
a fish, and be able to catch it before it reach 
the land, or water, During my life I have 
witnessed remarkable and peculiar 
incidents, but none that impressed itself on 
one of the ‘‘Rarest 
AGa He miBOnsSe 
many 
my mind like this of 
Sights,” 
The Archaeologist retires, having been 
consolidated with, and will be conducted as, 
adepartment of the Popular Science News 
Mr. Warren K. Moorehead 
editorial charge. This 
Popular Science News, 
sc ence monthlies published. 
remaining in 
change makes the 
one of the best 
