OSPREY. 53 



PANDION HALIAETUS. 

 OSPREY. 



(PLATE 3.) 



Accipiter falco piscator caroliniensis, Briss. Orn. i. p. 362 (1760). 



Aquila haliaeetus, Briss. Orn. i. p. 440 (1760) ; et auctomm plurimorum (Lin- 



lueus), (Gray), (Schkgef), (Gould), (Xeicton), (Sharps), &c. 

 Falco haliaetus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 129 (1766). 

 Falco arundinaceus, Gmel Syst. Nat. i. p. 263 (1788). 

 Falco carolinensis, Gmel. loc. cit. (1788). 

 Falco cayennensis, Gmel. loc. cit. (1788). 

 Aquila piscatrix, Vieill. Ois. Am. Sept. i. p. 29, pi. 4 (1807). 

 Pandion fluvialis, Savign. Syst. Ois. de FEgypte, p. 36 (1810). 

 Aquila haliaetus (Briss.), Wolf, Taschenb. i. p. 23;(1810). 



Triorches ihivialis (Sav.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. fyc. Brit. Mus. p. 10 (1816). 

 Aquila balbusardus, Dum>:.nt, Diet. i. Nat. i, p. 351 (1816). 

 Pandion americanus, rieill. $ And. Gal. Ois. p. 33, pi. 11 (1825). 

 Accipiter haliaetus (Briss.), Pall. Zo^gr. Rosso- As. i. p. 355 (1826). 

 Balbusardus haliaetus (Briss.}, Flem. Brit. An. p. 51 (1828). 

 Pandion haliaetus (Briss.), Less. Man. <TOrn. i. p. 86 (1828). 

 Pandion carolinensis, And. B. JV. Amer. pi. 81 (1831). 

 Pandion leucocephalus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 138. 

 Pandion indicus, Hodgs. Gray's Z-joL Misccl. p. 81 (1844). 

 Pandion ichthyaetas, Kaup, Classif. Siiuytth. it. Voy. p. 122 (1844, nee fforsf.). 

 Paudion gouldi, Kaup, Isi*, 1847. p. 270. 



Pandion haliaetus (Briss.), var. carolinensis, And. Ridg. Proc. A. N. Sc. 1870, p. 143. 

 Pandion fluviatilis (Sav.), Seveii:. Turk. Jecotnie, p. 63 (1873). 



The Osprey is one of the rarest raptorial birds in the British Islands. 

 From the peculiar manner in which it takes its prey, and its great dexterity 

 of movement, it has long been a favourite bird with the student of nature, 

 and is indeed one of the finest, although fast expiring ornaments of the 

 wild mountain-lochs, the bleak barren moors, and upland forests. The 

 remote districts of Scotland, the wild solitudes of Highland loch and 

 mountain, \vere once the favourite home of the Osprey; but now its 

 numbers have greatly decreased, and only a few pairs resort to the central 

 and northern districts of the Highlands for the purpose of rearing their 

 young. The Osprey is seldom seen in the wild scenery of the Hebrides, 

 but one or two specimens having been recorded from these islands. 

 Although the waters there teem with fish, the scarcity of suitable cover 

 and nesting-jflaces most probably explains its absence. There are still 

 one or two eyries in Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, and also in Galloway 

 a sufficient number of birds, if strictly preserved, to retain the Osprey in 

 the rank of a regular migrant to our island. In the Orkneys, the Shet- 



