208 THE OSPREY 



brown above and light-coloured below, hardly admits 

 of any doubt as to what they were. 



When Sir William Jardine wrote his notes to 

 Wilson's Birds of America, he said that a pair or two 

 of ospreys might be found about most of the Highland 

 lakes, and he mentions Loch Lomond, Loch Awe, and 

 the Lake of Menteith as regular stations. Later, in 

 1848, Charles St. John found several eyries in Suther- 

 landshire; indeed, some of the few unpleasant pages 

 in his delightful books are taken up with description 

 of how he and Dunbar shot several pairs of old birds 

 in the breeding season. At the present day, it is 

 believed, there are only two lochs in the Highlands 

 where ospreys are permitted to rear their young. Of 

 course it would not be safe to mention these, but I 

 have the satisfaction of recording that on one of them, 

 well known to me, where there has been an eyrie from 

 time immemoral, this year (1896), for the first time in 

 living memory, there were two eyries, and two broods 

 safely hatched. 



Some years ago, about 1887, I was able to verify 

 Jardine's statement that if one of a pair of ospreys is 

 shot, the other will soon bring a new mate to the eyrie. 

 But the difficulty of replacing a lost mate in Scotland 

 has been vastly enhanced since Jardine's day. One of 

 the pair on the loch referred to was shot just before 

 the breeding season. The disconsolate mate remained 

 there a few days and then flew off. The following 

 spring the old home was untenanted, but in the third 

 year a pair were in full occupation once more. They 



