OSPREY 661 
the Falconidx not only pterylologically, as long ago observed by 
Nitzsch, but also osteologically, as pointed out by M. Alphonse 
Milne-Edwards (Ois. Foss. France, ii. pp. 413, 419), and it is a curious 
fact that in some of the characters in which it differs structurally 
from the Falconidx, it agrees with certain of the Owls, especially in 
possessing a bony bridge or loop (a, in fig.) on the upper part of the 
anterior face of the tarsometatarse, through which passes the 
common extensor tendon of the toes;' and in having the exterior 
toe partly reversible; but the most important parts of its internal 
structure, as well as of its ptilosis, quite forbid a belief that there 
is any near alliance of the two groups. 
The Osprey is one of the most cosmopolitan Birds-of-Prey. 
From Alaska to Brazil, from Lapland to Natal, from Japan to 
Tasmania, and in some of the islands of the Pacific, it occurs as a 
Winter-visitant or as a native. The countries which it does not 
frequent would be more easily named than those in which it is 
found —and among the former are Ireland, Iceland and New 
Zealand. Though migratory in Europe at least, it is generally 
independent of climate. It breeds equally on the half-thawed 
shores of Hudson’s Bay and on the cays of Honduras, in the dense 
forests of Finland and on the barren rocks of the Red Sea, in 
Kamchatka and in West Australia. Where, through abundance of 
food, it is numerous—as in former days was the case in the eastern 
part of the United States—the nests of the Fish-Hawk (to use its 
American name) may be placed on trees to the number of three 
hundred close together. Where food is scarcer and the species 
accordingly less plentiful, a single pair will occupy an isolated rock, 
and jealously expel all intruders of their kind, as happens in 
Scotland.? The lover of birds cannot see many more enjoyable 
spectacles than an Osprey engaged in fishing—poising itself aloft, 
with upright body, and wings beating horizontally, ere it plunges 
like a plummet beneath the water, and immediately after reappears 
_ shaking a shower of drops from its plumage. The feat of carrying 
off an Osprey’s eggs is often difficult, and attended with some risk, 
but has more than once tempted the most daring of birds’ nesters. 
Apart from the dangerous situation not unfrequently chosen by the 
birds for their eyry,—a steep rock in a lonely lake, only to be 
reached after a long swim through chilly water, or the summit of a 
characters on which he founds such an important division are obviously inade- 
quate. The other genus associated with Pandion by him has been shewn by Mr. 
Gurney (bis, 1878, p. 455) to be nearly allied to the ordinary Sea-EAGLEs 
(Ealiactus), and therefore one of the true Falconide. 
1 This character is possessed by the group of Owls of the subfamily Strigine, 
according to the nomenclature of this work, but not by those of the Alucinz. 
2 Two good examples of the different localities chosen by this bird for its nest 
are illustrated in Ootheca Wolleyana, pls. B. & H. 
