THE OSPREY. 15 
‘They are on trees by scores, both high up and low down ; 
on rocks and boulders, whether on land or in the water ; 
on sheds and buildings; on fences and walls; on piles of 
debris; on old stumps; on a floating wooden platform 
intended for the fishermen’s use; on a channel buoy; on 
sand-buffs; on pieces of wreckage, driftwood, and fish- 
boxes. ‘The birds even attempted to build on the slender 
stakes supporting the fish-nets! In all of these varied 
nesting-sites, however, it will be noted that at least the 
suggestion of an eminence has probably first attracted the 
Ospreys to the spot. Similarly, many of the ground nests 
are found to be very close to some prominent object— 
itself incapable of supporting the nest—such as a post, a 
notice-sign, a telegraph pole, or a pointed stone. ‘The 
high, shelving beach, with its tempting piles of seaweed, 
probably appealed to some of the first ground-nesters as 
an “eminence,” and their offspring have come back and 
chosen a similar nesting-site. At all events, in 1910 there 
was a succession of no less than twenty-two nests at intervals 
varying from eleven yards to three hundred yards along the 
beach, on the south-westerly side of Gardiner’s Island. 
Some of the most recent additions to the beach-nesting 
colony had certainly quite lost any instinctive attraction 
for an “eminence”; their nests being a mere scattering 
of sticks in the edge of the marsh-grass—in location 
suggesting more the humble home of the Tern than the 
eyrie of the noble Osprey. 
It is evident that only an island could afford protection 
sufficient for the undisturbed existence of Osprey’s nests 
upon the ground. On the mainland, the penalty of such a 
departure from normal instincts of self-preservation would 
doubtless have been speedy annihilation. But on Gardiner’s 
Island there are no predaceous mammals, no egg-eating 
rodents, or other enemies of the birds, and the ground- 
building Ospreys are as safe as those nesting in the tree- 
tops. It must not be inferred, however, that Gardiner’s 
Island is unique in harbouring the ground nests of Ospreys. 
