OSPREY 



FISHING HAWK. 



PLATE VI. 



Pandion haliaetus, MACGILLIRAY. 



Aquila haliaetus^ ..... JENYNS. 



THE nest of the Osprey is built upon the summit of an 

 inland crag, or on some strong natural fastness by the 

 border of the ocean, river, or lake. 



Trees are also built on ; and where these birds are un- 

 molested, as they are in Pomerania and the delta of the 

 Oder, colonies are formed in the fishing season, sometimes 

 amounting to two or three hundred pairs. The nest is placed 

 at a height of from seven or eight to fifteen, and from that 

 to fifty, feet from the ground. If on a ruin, the highest point 

 of the building is selected. The nest is a cumbrous structure 

 an immense pile of large sticks and branches, some of 

 them as much as an inch and a half in diameter ; the whole 

 forming a mass easily discernible at the distance of half a 

 mile, or more, and in quantity enough to fill a cart. That 

 it is not blown down, or blown to pieces by the wind, is a 

 problem of which it is not easy to give a satisfactory solution. 

 It is occasionally heaped up to a height of four or five feet, 

 and is from two to three feet in breadth, interlaced and com- 

 pacted with sea- weed, stalks of corn, grass, or turf; the 



