168 FACULTIES OF BIRDS, 



fish in the sea, downe she comes with a power, 

 plungeth into the water, and, breaking the force 

 thereof with her brest, quickly she catcheth up 

 the fish and is gone*/' a circumstance which we 

 have frequently witnessed at the kyles of Bute and 

 elsewhere, when we have seen the osprey shoot down 

 like a thunderbolt from the air into the sea upon a 

 fish she had marked for her prey f. 



The description, however, which Wilson has given 

 of the fishing of the osprey, excels even Pliny's in 

 eloquence, while it equals Montagu's in accuracy. 

 " On leaving his nest," he says, " he usually flies 

 direct till he comes to the sea, then sails round in 

 easy curving lines, turning sometimes in the air as 

 on a pivot, apparently without the least exertion, 

 rarely moving his wings; his legs extended in a 

 straight line behind, and his remarkable strength and 

 curvature of wing distinguishing him from all other 

 hawks. Suddenly he is seen to check his course, as 

 if struck by a particular object, which he seems to 

 survey for a few moments with such steadiness that 

 he appears fixed in the air flapping his wings. This 

 object, however, he abandons and is again seen 

 sailing round as before. Now his attention is again 

 arrested, and he descends with great rapidity ; but 

 ere he reaches the surface, shoots off another course 

 as if ashamed that a second victim had escaped him. 

 He now sails at a short distance above the surface, 

 arid by a zigzag descent, and without seeming to 

 dip his feet in the water, seizes a fish, which, after 

 carrying a short distance, he drops it or probably 

 yields up his prey to the bald eagle, and again ascends, 

 by easy spiral circles, to the higher regions, where he 

 glides about with all the ease and majesty of his 

 species. At once, from the sublime aerial height, 

 he descends like a perpendicular torrent, plunging 

 * Holland's Plinnie, i, 272. f J, R. 



