130 THE OSPREY 



THE OSPREY 

 [W. P. PYCRAFT] 



At no time did the osprey breed in any numbers in our islands, 

 and the wilder parts of Scotland afforded the most suitable retreats. 

 Why, before the days of persecution, it should have failed to establish 

 itself in large numbers it is difficult to understand, since in North 

 America it is gregarious, as many as three hundred pairs having been 

 seen nesting on one small island. This is a very remarkable fact, 

 since Raptorial birds, for obvious reasons, avoid the neighbourhood 

 of their own kind. It is explained of course by the fact that this 

 species feeds almost entirely on fish, of which the supply is almost 

 inexhaustible, so that there is no struggle for food-supplies. The 

 roughened sole of the foot, which we have already noted in the sea- 

 eagle, is in the osprey even more marked, and in addition we find the 

 hallux reversible, as in the Owls. Whether this affords a better grip 

 of slippery prey, such as fish, is conjectural. 



As everybody knows, the osprey seizes its prey by a tremendous 

 plunge, equalled only by that of the gannet, but whereas in the latter 

 the beak is the instrument of capture, in the osprey the feet are used. 

 It may well be that the enormous width and peculiar shape of the 

 pelvis in the osprey are adaptations to this mode of capture ; no other 

 Accipitrine bird at anyrate displays a similar modification. As to 

 the courting habits of the osprey our information is nil. But we are 

 especially indebted to Dr. P. H. Bahr and Mr. C. J. Abbott for 

 their vivid accounts of the osprey during the breeding season in New 

 Jersey, where there is a nesting colony of some three hundred pairs ! 

 Most of the nests surveyed were on the ground, but many were in 

 trees. In all cases they were very bulky structures, and the outworks 

 of those lodged in trees had been seized upon by purple grackles and 

 sparrows as eligible sites for their own untidy nurseries ! 



The ospreys fished chiefly during the early mornings and even- 

 ings, circling round at no great height from the water, and carefully 



