HAWKS, FALCONS AN EAGLES. 27 



hand, but when seen at a distance it has nothing of 

 the imposing aspect of the Sea Eagle. In fact, one 

 who has not been accustomed to notice birds may 

 easily pass it by as some vulgar fowl of the kite sort. 

 In the Ratnagiri district I have seldom met a 

 native who could give me a name for it. Yet the 

 Osprey, when once you know it, is not to be con- 

 founded with anything else. There it sits on the 

 point of a fishing stake, a dark-brown bird with a 

 white cap, the breast and under parts also white, but 

 interrupted by a necklace of brown beads ; there is 

 nothing else like it. And when it flies it is equally 

 peculiar : its wings are very long, and it beats the air 

 rapidly with the points of them. And if you are still 

 in doubt, the matter is settled when it suddenly closes 

 its wings and from a height of forty or fifty feet 

 falls headlong into the water. That is one of the finest 

 sights I know. With a tremendous splash the sea 

 receives the bird and closes over it, and a ring 

 of expanding waves starts from the spot where 

 it perished. But a second later it reappears, and, 

 lifting itself and a great fish out of the heaving 

 water, shakes the drops off its shoulders with a 

 peculiar shrug and hies to a favourite rock, white 

 with the remains of many fish dinners. This is 

 a marvellous feat, especially when you remember 

 that, like all birds of prey, the Osprey strikes with 

 its feet and not with its beak. The fishes which 

 it catches are sometimes so heavy that it can scarcely 

 carry them to the nearest land. It is often pursued 

 and forced to deliver up its well earned booty by its 

 more powerful, but less plucky and skilful, neigh- 

 bour, the Sea Eagle. 



