IV FALCONIDAE 181 
politan in range, though local everywhere, and absent from many of 
the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and America 
south of Brazil, is dark brown above, with the short crest, head, 
nape, and lower parts white; the crown being streaked with 
blackish, and a brown band—which becomes in the male a series 
of spots—crossing the chest. The bill is dusky, the cere and feet 
are bluish, and the irides yellow. The smaller Australasian J. 
leucocephalus and the American P. carolinensis barely attain sub- 
specific rank. A migrant to Britain, this bird formerly bred at 
Ulleswater, and not uncommonly in Scotland, where two or three 
pairs still remain. Of old it often occupied rocky islets or ruins 
in Highland lochs, but the nest is usually placed in other coun- 
tries on trees or sea-cliffs, and exceptionally on the ground; trees 
being the favourite site in America, in which country colonies are 
sometimes formed, consisting of even three hundred pairs. The 
bulky flattish pile of sticks and turf, lined with moss, grass, or 
seaweed, is invariably placed near water, and contains three, or 
rarely four, whitish eggs, beautifully blotched or overspread with 
dark brown, crimson, or claret-colour, varied with orange, buff or 
grey, New World specimens being usually duller. Surface- 
swimming fish form the food, and magnificent indeed is the spectacle 
when an Osprey, after poising itself vertically aloft, descends with 
terrific dash and splashing plunge to rise again with its captured 
prey grasped in its roughened toes. The graceful flight is varied 
by many evolutions and spiral ascents, while the loud piercing 
scream is chiefly heard at the nesting-quarters. 
Of fossil Falconine forms, excluding existing species, Lithornis 
vulturinus is found in the London Clay (Lower Eocene); from the 
Upper Eocene of France comes Palaeocercus cuvieri and Faleo— 
the former possibly from England also; from the Lower Miocene of 
France Teracus littoralis, Palacohierax gervaisi, Aquila, Buteo, and 
Milvus ; from its Middle Miocene Haliaétus and Aquila. Aquila 
also occurs in the American Phocene of Nebraska and Oregon; Falco 
in the Italian; from the drifts of Queensland we have Necrastur 
alacer and Taphaétus branchialis; from the Argentine Pampean 
of Lujan and the Post-Pampean of Monte Hermoso respectively 
Asthenopterus minutus and Foetopterus ambiguus; while the 
superficial deposits and swamps of New Zealand furnish a sub- 
fossil Circus and the giant Harpagornis moorii ; and the Mare 
aux Songes of Mauritius Astur alphonsi. 
