204 NOTES ON THE 
PANDION HALIAETUS CAROLINENSIS (Gmeuin). (364.) 
AMERICAN OSPREY. 
About the middle of April this remarkable hawk-eagle is seen 
perching on the projecting limb of a dry tree on the shore of 
some lake or creek, and more frequently the latter, as the fish 
are making their way to the marshes to spawn. Perhaps his 
doubtful distinguishment from the eagle has scarcely been set- 
tled, when down he drops, splash, into the water, out of which 
he instantly rises with a large fish hanging by its head from 
his talons, as he sails away to the forest at hand. He never 
stays near the place where he gets his prey, but from a long 
cherished memory of the persecutions of the bald eagle, at once 
buries himself in the coverts of the thick, dark woods while 
devouring it. Iwas once in such a forest in search of some 
small birds, when my attention was arrested by what I sup- 
posed to be an eagle with a large snake dangling by its head 
from the talons of one foot. I instantly exchanged a shell 
loaded with No. 12 shot for one charged with No. 8, and awaited 
his approach. 
As I stood in a little open space, I expected nothing else than 
that he would see me and turn his course, but remaining per- 
fectly still, he continued to come directly towards me, and as- 
sayed to light on the lower limb of a lofty tree directly over my 
head, about sixty feet above me, when, just as his unengaged 
foot grasped the limb, with both wings extended, I pulled 
trigger, and speedily got myself out of the line of his gravita- 
tion, when a monstrous Fish Hawk and a bouncing pickerel 
simultaneously struck the ground at my feet. The hawk was 
too dead to wag a toe or shrug a wing, but the fish flopped and 
bounded like any other fish just out of water. One, I helped 
my friends eat for dinner, and the other was a fews days after 
on the shelves of my private collection of birds, since pre- 
sented to the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences. 
About the first of May they begin to build their nests, which 
are placed more commonly in a large tree on the bank of either 
a large stream or a lake of considerable size. Occasionally 
they go quite a little distance into the forest, where the trees 
are very numerous and tall. Except in the hugeness of its 
proportions the nest does not differ materially from the other 
large hawks or from the eagles except in being a little less 
bulky. It consists of large sticks, smaller sticks, grass with 
bits of turf clinging to it, coarse weeds and fine weeds mixed 
with somewhat finer grass. 
