PANDION HALLEETUS. 59 



the sticks project very slightly beyond the sides, and are built up 

 with turf and other compact materials ; the summit is of moss, very 

 flat and even ; and the cavity occupies a comparatively small part of 

 it. I know no other nest at all like it. There was a nest for some 

 years on the sloping trunk of a tree, which several persons have 

 described to me. The birds are very constant, year after year, in 

 returning to their old stations ; and even after one or both birds have 

 been killed in the previous season, I have frequently seen indivi- 

 duals flying near the now deserted eyrie ^ 



§ 81. 0;^^.— Sutherlandshire, 17(?) May, 1848. From Mr. 

 W. Dunbar's Collection. 



Sent to me with two other Osprey's eggs, from three different 

 nests, by Mr. Dunbar. That from which this one comes contained 

 two eggs, the other being in Mr. John Hancock's Collection. They 

 were taken by Mr. Dunbar in Mr. Charles St. John's company ; and 

 that gentleman gives an account of the nest, stating that he shot one 

 of the parent birds (Tour in Sutherlandshire, i. pp. 29 et seqq.). 

 Mr. Dunbar wrote to me as follows : — " The eggs were quite fresh, 

 and seemed only to have been deposited the same day, or a day 

 before. Mr. St. John shot the old bird; but, being only severely 

 wounded, it went with the strong wind a long distance, and dropped. 

 We searched in vain amongst the grey rocks, but could not find it. 

 The other bird still kept flying about out of reach of gunshot, while 

 the first entirely disappeared, and was no more seen. We came that 

 way exactly a month afterwards; and I went to see the nest, and 

 found two Ospreys with one egg in it. I took the eggs from the 

 same nest the year before, and shot the female bird ; but some time 

 after, I was told that, notwithstanding my having killed her, the other 

 one had in a few days procured a fresh mate, and hatched and brought 

 off* the young. It was this circumstance that induced me to call a 

 second time this season at the same nest. Whether it was the male or 

 female that Mr. St. John shot I cannot say ; but I have no doubt that 

 it was killed." On another occasion, Mr. Dunbar informed me that 

 the nest was on an island in a loch, similar to those from which the 

 two other eggs he sent me at the same time were obtained, " placed on 

 the top of a rock, and composed of an immense heap of an old white 

 sticks. It had been built in the same spot as long as the oldest in- 



^ [The foregoing- remarks were communicated by Mr. WoUey, in 1853, to Mr. 

 Hewitson, to whom I am indebted for leave to quote them here. Thev will be 

 found at pp. 19 and 20 of the third edition of his well-known work. — Ed.] 



