OSPBEYS 249 



The Fish Hawk is a general summer resident, occurring in 

 quite good numbers for such a large bird, very generally 

 along the coast and locally throughout the interior about 

 various bodies of water. The first coast arrivals appear about 

 April tenth, and in the interior slightly later or after the ice 

 has left the lakes, and they remain until well along in Septem- 

 ber, or exceptionally until October fifteenth. 



Inland they place a bulky nest of sticks, driftwood, and bark 

 lined with grass and moss in some tall tree, nearly always 

 inaccessible and sometimes dead, and generally so situated that 

 a good view of the water can be obtained. Along the coast 

 they nest in lower trees, generally spruces, and not infrequently 

 on the ground on the point of an island, the nest always being 

 very bulky. On one island, a small one of not over two acres 

 in Penobscot Bay, I found two nests of the Osprey containing 

 eggs, the nests being on the extreme opposite points of the 

 island. Occasionally three or four nests may be found in trees 

 within an area of a few hundred yards but usually however 

 the birds each prefer a separate island, except on the very 

 largest wooded islands along the Maine coast. 



I have sometimes found them nesting on small ledges, barely 

 above the high tide level, also on "spindles" in at least two 

 instances. Usually two or three, and more rarely four eggs 

 are laid. Four from a nest composed of sticks, sods, seaweed 

 and rubbish, lined with a little grass, which was twenty-five 

 feet up at the top of a spruce tree on Beech Island, were taken 

 May 26, 1897. These eggs measure 2.43 x 1.74, 2.38 x 1.72 

 2.46 X 1.75, 2.51 x 1.74. 



A nest situated on the point of an island in Penobscot Bay 

 on the ground was composed of sticks, brush and rubbish lined 

 with dry grass and a few feathers. This nest was seventy inches 

 in diameter outside, and twenty feet in circumference at the 

 bottom. The height outside was three feet and the depth of 

 hollow inside three inches. 



