26 OSPEEY. 



thus continues the routine of its daily life. Sometimes it is 

 said to devour its food in the air, but I cannot think this. 

 The audacious White-headed Eagle often robs the too patient 

 Osprey of its hardly-toiled-for prey before it has had time to 

 devour it itself, forcing it to drop it in the air, and catching 

 it as it falls. 



The sole food of the Osprey is fish, and from its manner 

 of taking it by suddenly darting or falling on it, it has been 

 called by the Italians, 'Aquila plumbina/ or the Leaden Eagle. 

 It is however said by Montagu, that it will occasionally take 

 other prey that one has been seen to strike a young wild 

 duck, and having lost its hold of it, to seize it again a second 

 time before it reached the water. I must, however, express 

 the strongest doubt of this having been the case. If the cir- 

 cumstance as described to hrm really occurred at all, I can 

 hardly think but that some other species must have been 

 mistaken for the one before us, particularly from the latter 

 fact mentioned, for Wilson, whose opportunities of observing 

 this bird were so abundant, says expressly, that not only does 

 it feed exclusively on fish, but that it never attempts to seize 

 a, second time one which it may have dropped. It usually 

 takes its prey below the surface of the water, and never 

 catches it when leaping out, even when in the case of the 

 flying fish it has ample opportunities of doing so, though 

 when that persecuted creature is again submerged, it will follow 

 it into its more legitimate element, and take it there without 

 scruple. It never preys on any of the inferior land animals, 

 which it might so easily capture were it thus disposed. Even 

 when the lakes, which supply its usual food, are frozen over, 

 and when it is difficult to imagine how it can supply its 

 wants without resorting to other, even if uncongenial, food, it 

 does not do so. 



The Osprey seldom alights on the ground, and when it does 

 so, its movements are awkward and ungainly. It is not in 

 its element but when in the air; occasionally however it remains 

 for several hours together in a sluggish state of repose. 



It builds at very different times, in different places in 

 January, February, March, April, and the beginning of May: 

 the latter month appears in this country to be the period of 

 its nidification. It repairs the original nest, seeming like many 

 other species, to have a predilection from year to year, for the 

 same building place. The saline materials of which it is com- 

 posed, and perhaps also the oil from, the fish brought to it, 



