246 Life and Immortality. 



especially when the weather is remarkably fine, as late as the 

 fifteenth of October. Well-established communities, num- 

 bering more than fifty pairs, have been met within the 

 swamps of Southern New Jersey, among whom the best 

 order and most perfect harmony prevailed. Few species dis- 

 play less shyness and greater confidence, or are more emi- 

 nently social, as is particularly shown when these birds take 

 up their quarters in close proximity to occupied dwellings, or 

 by the side of frequented by-paths and highways. Where 

 undisturbed, the same localities are visited year after year. 

 Their exclusive piscine habits secure for them free and un- 

 limited sway in their carefully chosen abodes, for the poul- 

 try has nothing to fear, and the smaller birds are not intim- 

 idated by their presence and sent screaming to their coverts 

 as they do even when pursued by the little sparrow hawk. 

 Wilson cites a case where four nests of the common purple 

 grackle were built within the interstices of an Osprey's nest, 

 and a fifth on an adjoining branch, and the Osprey was quite 

 tolerant of such intrusion and freedom. The writer has ob- 

 served a nest of the grackle built in a similar position, while 

 all around the great Hawk's home, and scarcely five rods dis- 

 tant, were nests of the robin, wood thrush, red-winged black- 

 bird and others, and no annoyance was known to occur, 

 the Ospreys carefully attending to their own business and 

 scarcely noticing their more humble brethren. 



Their bitterest enemy is the white-headed eagle, against 

 whom the united attacks of many of these birds are concen- 

 trated when he has the audacity to venture within their 

 hunting-grounds or breeding-quarters, for they are too 

 familiar with his powerful muscularity and courageous dis- 

 position to attempt a single attack. When an Osprey is 

 pursued by this king of the forest and hunting-ground, his 

 loud, vociferous cries of distress, resounding far and near, 

 evoke an army of defenders, who come with all possible 

 speed to wreak vengeance upon the great arch-enemy of 

 their pleasures and happiness. These attacks are made for 



