9208 Birds. 
selves. This cannot be accomplished without first severing across the tendons of those 
muscles that in life endow the talons with their enormous prehensile power. The 
talons laid back or extended from the sole of the foot, we find the under surface of each 
toe and the sole or ball of the foot itself clothed with a cuticle so rough and horny, 
in texture and arrangement, that it more resembles a file than any organic structure, 
each separate epithelial particle being drawn out to a rigid, tooth-like point. This 
roughened palm and resistless grasp enables the osprey to hold with ease the slippery 
prey on which it feeds, aud, without apparent effort, to set its struggles at defiance 
even during flight. The shank of the leg is shorter and at the same time 
thicker, in proportion to the size of the bird, than in any other species of 
the great falcon family. This, too, lends power to the limb, and, as the skin 
and fibrous expansion that binds the tendons in their places are also immensely 
thickened and strong, the whole arrangement presents one of the most striking 
examples of concentrated strength, and perfect aptitude for its appointed offices, that 
we can meet with in creation. The unusual mobility and length of the outer toe also, 
which can voluntarily be advanced or drawn backwards, adds still further to the pre- 
hensile power of the member. The grasp of this onter toe is much increased by its 
unusual relative length, which is not far short of the middle toe, the proportion being 
as follows, viz., middle toe, 13 inch ; outer toe, 1} inch. The general condition of the 
bird was unusually good for a bird of prey whose body generally appears rather mus- 
cular and lean than fat. This specimen must have lived in clover, and fed leisurely 
for some time, as it was both muscular and fat. Dissection proved the sex female, 
aud one fully mature; but although this is about the nesting time of the osprey, and 
several of the ova were as large us good-sized peas, no other bird of the species has 
been observed in the neighbourhood, in spite of a very sharp look-out I have esta- 
blished, in order to detect the male in case that my specimen had been paired. The 
crop of this female osprey was distended with food. This seemed to be chiefly the 
soft parts of fresh-water fish, mixed up with a few bones, apparently swallowed inad- 
vertently with the soft parts, rather than as food, or to serve any other purpose in the 
process of digestion. From the pulpy state of the fish in the crop shortly after death, 
1 should suppose that organ to be endowed “with glands secreting a fluid which pos- 
sesses a certain solvent effect on the fuod lodged within its cavity. This is, however, 
merely a supposition on my part, arising simply from the condition of the contents of 
the crop as I observed them. This bird cannot have fed very long before it was shot, 
which probably accounts for the peculiar manner of its flight. The man who shot it 
states that it was flying about twenty feet from the earth, certainly not more, when he 
shot it. The food at the time of death was in the act of passing from the erop to the 
stomach: the ventriculus succenturiatus and fiist portion of the stomach had become 
nearly filled with matters precisely similar to those found in the crop, and in an exactly 
similar condition as to their consistency. ‘The stomach itself was peculiar, being 
somewhat similar to that of the smew, goosander, &c. (all fish-eating birds), but 
curiously enough exhibiting the order of its parts reversed, viz., the thicker or more 
muscular portion attached to the ventriculus succenturiatus and cesophagus instead of 
to the bowel, and the purely digesting, thin, almost transparent portion attached to the 
bowel instead of to the gullet, &c. Why this reversal of parts it is difficult to sur- 
mise, unless indeed it be to insure a more perfect solution of the food previous to its 
being passed onwards for the purposes of assimilation. The food, first pulped 
thoroughly by the combined action of solvent fluids and mechanical muscular force, is - 
