120 NATTTBAL HISTOET SKETCHES. 



round in steady circles, without apparently moving their 

 wings. We had plenty of them on the kangaroo-ground, 

 and I procured above a dozen fine specimens m one 

 winter. They were often on the ground, and I fancy 

 were principally carrion-feeders ; they bred in our 

 forests ; the nest very large, invariably placed in the 

 fork of a large gum-tree; not always very hgh, but 

 generally inaccessible to any but a black. Several old 

 deserted nests stood in the forests, mementoes of by- 

 gone days, before the foot of the white inai trod these 

 wilds; and I recollect the eagle-hawk's n<st on an old 

 blasted gum was one of our favourite " trsting places " 

 when driving kangaroo ; this bird is not jearly so shy as 

 the European eagle, and when gorged w*h carrion by no 

 means difficult to approach. 



The Large White Fishing Hawk tas by no means 

 rare on our coasts ; they were genejilly flying up and 

 down the beach, and I rarely saw theA far inland. It is 

 hardly so large as the wedge-tailed egle, but thicker and 

 more robust in appearance, and Bunder in the wing 

 when flying ; the tail is not so log, but also wedge- 

 shaped and rounded ; the body-tflour, and wings, are 

 slate-blue ; the neck, breast, and'elly, white ; the shaft 

 of each feather dark. It was nf a true osprey, but in 

 the shape of the head resemble/that bird ; the feathers 

 on the neck were shorter : it wa/oy no means so common 

 as the eagle-hawk. I once fou the nest of this bird on 

 an old dead gum-tree, in a wrfl about half a mile from 

 the coast. We went several/inies by day to shoot the 



