OSPREY IN SUSSEX. 45 



weald would appear to offer many spots favour- 

 able to its nidification, and were it not for the un- 

 ceasing warfare carried on against all the tribe, I 

 might have had the pleasure of recording here at 

 least one instance of its sojourning with us during 

 the breeding- season : but no sooner does an 

 osprey make his appearance in such a situation, 

 soaring aloft in graceful and repeated circles, 

 dashing into the deep, or suddenly arresting his 

 downward career, and hovering over the surface, 

 than he beomes the object of general persecution; 

 the proprietor of pike is alarmed, issues his merci- 

 less edict for his death or expulsion, guns and 

 traps are put into immediate requisition, and the 

 keeper, in his undiscriminating hatred of every- 

 thing in the shape of a hawk, vies with the guar- 

 dian of the waters in his efforts to destroy the 

 beautiful stranger. 



During the months of May and June, 1843, an 

 osprey was observed to haunt the large ponds 

 near Bolney. After securing a fish he used to re- 

 tire to an old tree on the more exposed bank to 

 devour it, and about the close of evening was in 

 the habit of flying off toward the north-west, 

 sometimes carrying away a prize in his talons if 

 his sport had been unusually successful, as if he 

 dreaded being disturbed at his repast during the 

 dangerous hour of twilight. Having been shot at 



