34 FALCONID^.. 



Rocke stated that the species bred every year in Inverness, 

 whence Lord Hill had several times received the young, but 

 finding it impossible to rear them, he had requested that in 

 future they might not be disturbed. About this time also 

 information reached Mr. Joseph Wolf, the accomplished 

 zoological artist, that a second spot in another quarter was 

 still tenanted ; and lately Mr. Robert Gray has announced 

 that in 1867 there were three or four strictly protected 

 breeding stations in Ross-shire, and that he has authority 

 for believing that one in the south-west of the kingdom is 

 yet used. It thus appears that there is still a sufficient 

 number left to stock the whole of Scotland, and it may be 

 hoped that the efforts of those who are anxious for this 

 species to retain its rank as a native of our island will meet 

 with success. 



In Ireland, in the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands, the 

 Osprey seems to have never occurred but as an accidental 

 stranger. It does not visit either Iceland or Greenland, but 

 there are comparatively few parts of the globe in which it 

 is not found ; for, though many ornithologists have described 

 the " Fish-Hawks " of America and Australia as distinct, 

 under the names respectively of Paudion caroUnensis and 

 P. leucocephaliis, Professor Schlegel and Mr. Gurney have 

 recorded their opinion (in which they have been followed by 

 authorities so high as Drs. Hartlaub and Finsch), that there 

 is but one and the same species all the world over, and on 

 this view it seems that the Osprey is the most cosmopolitan 

 of the birds-of-prey. It is abundant throughout North 

 America southward, from lat. G0°, and breeds on the Cays 

 of Honduras ; it yearly visits the West Indies, and is 

 recorded from Brazil by Prince Max and Natterer — the 

 last of whom met with it so far in the interior as the 

 middle of the province of Mato Grosso. Mr. Gurney 

 considers examples from the Atlantic side of the continent 

 to be larger than those from elsewhere, and adds, that 

 one of the smallest he has seen is from Nootka Sound. It 

 occurs in some only of the islands of the Pacific (the Isle of 

 Pines and the Exchequer group, for example), and not at all 



