23 
OSPREY. 
Pandion ha/liaétus, SAVIGNY. 
Faleo J BEwIck. 
Balbusardus haliaétus, FLEMING, 
Aquila JENYNS. 
Pandion—The name of a Greek hero, changed into a bird of prey. 
Huliaétus. (H)als—The sea. Aietos—An Eagle, 
Ir is not every one who has had the fortune—the good 
fortune—to visit those scenes, where, in this country at least, 
the Osprey is almost exclusively to be met with. In these, 
which may in truth be called the times of perpetual motion, 
there is indeed hardly a nook, or mountain pass, which is not 
yearly visited by some one or more travellers. Where shall 
the most secure dweller among the rocks be now free from 
the intrusion of, in ornithological language, at least “occasional 
visitants:’ Still the case is not exactly one to which applies 
the logical term of ‘universal affirmative.’ Though every spot 
may be visited, it is not every one who visits it. How many 
of those who shall read the following description of the Osprey, 
have taken the ‘grand tour’ of Sutherlandshire? 
In that desolate and romantic region, though even there at 
wide intervals, and ‘far between,’ and in a very few other 
localities, the Fishing Hawk may yet be seen in all the wild 
freedom of his nature. There it breeds in the fancied con- 
tinuance of that safety, which has for so many ages been real. 
You may see, even in the year eighteen hundred and fifty, 
an occasional eyrie on the top of some rocky islet in the middle 
of the mountain lake. 
This species is very widely distributed over a large portion 
of the globe, being met with, in greater or less abundance, in 
Europe, Africa, and America, sometimes in very considerable 
numbers, and doubtless in Asia also. In America it seems to 
be most particularly numerous, a whole colony tenanting the 
same building place. It is also met with in Russia, Siberia, 
Kamtschatka, Scandinavia, France, Spain, and Germany, Swit- 
