278 
WILD WINGS 
suddenly darted on to the nest and I made the exposure, 
without causing her to fly. It would have been successful, 
save that, in setting the camera, I had accidentally exposed 
the plate, and so had a double picture. A subsequent at¬ 
tempt was entirely successful, though the hawk almost found 
me out, for she alighted close above my head and kept 
me lying face downward for ten minutes without moving 
a muscle, while the swarms of mosquitoes were doing their 
worst. 
Since then I have learned that hawks — notably the larger 
kinds — seem to know when a person has not left the woods, 
and will often refuse to approach the nest until one has really 
gone. The best way to deceive them in such a case is to take 
a companion to the spot, get well hidden, and then have the 
other noisily withdraw. 
The magnificent Osprey, or Fish Hawk, is another species 
which, in the latitude of New England, lays its eggs in early 
May. Osprey “ hawking” is very different from what I have 
been describing. Nests are often jDlaced in solitary trees on 
open land near water, sometimes close to a house, as is the 
case in southern New England. I have seen one on the cross¬ 
piece of a telephone pole, and they have been built on chim¬ 
neys or other strange places. The nests are usually enormous, 
and it is frequently very difficult to get above to photograph 
them. Meanwhile the old birds will sometimes menace one 
in the most ferocious manner, though I nev^er knew one 
actually to strike. They generally lay three eggs, rarely four, 
very heavily and strikingly marked. 
I have also studied Ospreys on various parts of our South¬ 
ern coast, where they nest in pineries or swamps, often in the 
vicinity of nests of the Bald Eagle. They are often tame 
enough to alight on the nest when one is standing beneath it, 
and many a camera-shot have I fired at the hovering birds. 
