OSPREY. 59 
bird’s attack, the Osprey’s feet exhibit certain well-marked peculiarities. 
The outer toe is reversible, the claws are remarkably curved and sharp, 
and the soles of the feet are very rough, all assisting the bird to grasp its 
food with great certainty and precision, From their peculiar structure 
the claws of the Osprey do not tear the tender flesh of its prey, nor are 
they easily withdrawn when once they are inserted—a circumstance which 
has not unfrequently been known to cost the bird its life, by fastening to 
a fish too large for it to lift from the water. The food of the Osprey is 
composed of various kinds of fish. When its habitation is near the fresh 
waters, trout, salmon, roach, carp, pike, bream, rudd, &c. are eaten, the 
first-named fish (the brown or lake-trout) in Scotland forming its favourite 
food. In maritime districts the Osprey feeds on shad, flounders, &c., and 
has been known to strike at large sturgeon. The fish when seized is 
always carried lengthwise in its talons—a position consequent upon the 
easiest way of approaching and taking it, not, it is probable, because it 
would at all impede the bird’s flight if carried crosswise ; for, once the 
claws are inserted in the fish, there they remain until it is eaten or torn 
in pieces. 
Like raptorial birds in general, the Osprey pairs for life and returns 
yearly to its old breeding-grounds. When the Osprey was a common bird 
in Scotland it almost invariably chose some rocky islet in the mountain- 
lochs, or built its bulky citadel on some commanding battlement or 
chimney-stack of an old ruin surrounded by the waters. These nests were 
so regularly tenanted that quite a historical interest attached to them; 
and even now of late years, when the Osprey is almost only known as a 
tradition, the situations of its former eyries are pointed out as objects of 
no small amount of interest. In many parts of the world, however, the 
Osprey builds in trees; and in America, where it is such an abundant 
species, it occasionally breeds in colonies, This habit of arboreal nest- 
building appears to be followed by the British birds; and what few eyries 
do now exist at the present day in Scotland are for the most part in 
pine trees. 
There are few scenes more wildly picturesque than an Osprey’s eyrie, 
nor so well worth a visit, a sight of its wild surroundings and grand 
solitude amply recompensing the observer for the usually hard and weari- 
some tramp over hill and bog ere he can reach it. Should it be on some 
old ruinous keep or dungeon, water-surrounded and safe from enemies, 
far among mountain-solitudes, or in the silent deer-forest, on the tree- 
clad slopes sweeping so grandly away into dreamy indistinctness, sur- 
rounded by almost impregnable morasses and rocky glens, in all its 
interest is the same. Wherever the bird builds its castle the locality 
gains an untold interest, receives a sense of life and animation. From 
the great weight and bulkiness of the Osprey’s nest, and from the fact 
