12 OSPEEY. 



encouraged, as in some places they are, a colony is 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, generally the chimney a necessary 

 appendage even to a border castle. It 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 dis- 

 cernible at the distance of half a mile, or more, and in quantity 

 enough to fill a cart. How it is that it is not blown down, or blown 

 to pieces by a gale of wind, is a difficulty which is not very easy to 

 give a satisfactory solution of. It occasionally is heaped up to a 

 height of four or five feet, and is from two to three feet in breadth, 

 interlaced and compacted with sea-weed, stalks of corn, grass, or turf; 

 the whole, in consequence of annual repairs and additions, which even 

 in human dwellings so often make a house larger than it was 

 originally intended to be, not to say unsightly, becoming by degrees 

 of the character described above. 



The Osprey breeds at very different times of the year in different 

 latitudes in January, February, March, and April, and the beginning 

 of May; the last-named appears, in this country, to be the period of 

 its nidification. The saline materials of which the nest is composed, 

 and perhaps also the oil from the fish brought to it, have the effect 

 in a few years, of destroying the tree on which it has been placed. 

 The male partially assists the female in the business of incubation, 

 and at other times keeps near her, and provides her with food; she 

 sits accordingly very close. 



It is a curious fact that smaller birds frequently build their nests 

 in the outskirts of those of the Osprey, without molestation on the 

 one hand, or fear on the other. Larger birds also build theirs in the 

 immediate vicinity, without any disturbance on the part of either. 



The eggs differ considerably in size and shape, some preserving the 

 rotundity of form which is characteristic of the whole family of rapa- 

 cious birds, while others tend more towards a point at one end, the 

 latter indeed being more peculiarly a distinction of the present species. 

 They are commonly only two in number, but occasionally three, and 

 in some instances, though but very rarely, as many as four. 



Their ground colour is white, or dull yellowish, or dull brownish 

 white, much mottled over, particularly at the thicker end, and in an 

 irregular manner, with brown or rust-colour, with some specks of light 

 brownish grey. 



The larger spots are sometimes of a very fine rich brown. 



