American Osprey. 267 



swifter in flight than the eagle, it foolishly attempts to 

 escape by rising with its burden. Its pursuer, unencum- 

 bered and fresh for the chase, screams its challenge and 

 wheels ever nearer in narrowing circles, its unmoving 

 pinions presenting a marked contrast to the rapidly flap- 

 ping wings of the despairing osprey. At the last moment, 

 when the victorious eagle is about to strike the vanquished 

 osprey from above, the latter relinquishes its prey with a 

 wild cry of anger, and the thrilling performance has ended, 

 unless the eagle swoops in the path of the swiftly falling 

 fish and attempts to take it for his own use. The osprey 

 never seems to think of retaking it, even when it falls 

 on the ground where it can be easily recovered. 



Where the circumstances are favorable, the ospreys nest 

 in colonies. Along the Atlantic seaboard there are many 

 colonies containing from fifty to two hundred nests. The 

 nests are made of coarse sticks, and are used from year to 

 year, if not destroyed, growing larger each year by the 

 addition of new materials, until sometimes the nests are 

 five or six feet in height and nearly as wide. Some 

 observers report that when a new nest is to be made in a 

 colony many birds sometimes participate in the eff'ort, and 

 apparently enjoy an old-fashioned "bee," or '< raising." At 

 such times the birds perform wonderful aerial evolutions. 

 It is not an unusual thing to see one of the birds drop the 

 stick he is carrying, with no other apparent purpose than 

 to exhibit his dexterity in swooping down and catching it 

 in air, which is done with the same ease with which the 

 schoolboy tosses up a stick and catches it as it turns. I have 

 seen the tree swallow, whose nest had been harried, sweep 

 around the neighborhood and catch the floating fragments 

 of her home in her mouth, when the feathers of which 

 her domicile had been composed were floating on the air, 

 but such evolutions in the movements of the larger rapa- 

 cious birds are unusually interesting. At times the osprey 

 evinces its pleasure in lofty aerial manoeuvers by pausing 

 in its easy onward sailing, and mounting upward for 

 several yards by strong flappings of its wings, pitching 

 forward with motionless pinions and quickly descending 

 to its former level, staying its downward progress by sud- 



