Their Eggs and Nests. 43 



cated cone. On the summit of this was the nest, a 

 pile of sticks of very greal depth, evidently the ac- 

 cumulation of many bleeding seasons, as the Osprey 

 returns year after year to the same nest. How this 

 lieap of sticks withstood the winter gales without 

 being blown at once into the water, puzzled me. . . . 

 The female Osprey allowed our boat to approach 

 within two hundred yards or so, and then, leaving her 

 nest, sailed upwards with a circling flight, till she 

 joined her mate high above us. 



" Having reached the rock, and with some difficulty 

 ascended to the nest, our disappointment may be im- 

 agined when we found it empty. From the old bird 

 having remained on so long, we had made sure of 

 finding eggs in it. The nest itself, however, was in- 

 teresting to me, perched as it was on the very summit 

 of the rock, and composed of large sticks,^ every one 

 of which must have been a heavy burden for a bird of 

 the size of the Osprey. 



" In the centre of the pile of sticks was a cup-shaped 

 hollow, the size of a boy's cap, lined with moss and 

 dead grass, and apparently quite ready to receive 

 ecrors." " In another nest," savs the same author, 

 elsewhere, " we found two beautiful eggs, of a round- 

 ish shape : the colour white, with numerous spots and 

 marks of a fine rich red brown." — Fig. % plate I. 



The Osprey is met with from time to time in al- 

 most all parts of the kingdom, but more especially 

 along the east coast ; but it is known to breed no- 

 wdiere in England now. In America, it is met with in 



1 Some of the sticks — or rather branches — employed, are said to 

 have been 1^ inch in diameter, 



