390 



THE BIRDS OF NORTH CACHAR. 



Part IX. 

 By E. C. Stuart Ba.ker, f.z.s., m.b.o.tj. 

 ( Continued from page 233 of this Vol. ) 

 Order XI — Accipitres. 

 Family Pandionidce. 

 (501) Pandion haliaetus. — The Osprey. 

 Hume, No. 40 ; Blanford, No. 1189. 

 There are but few of these birds to be met with within the limits of 

 Cachar, though on the vast bheels in the adjoining district of Sylhet 

 it may be more often seen. During the last seven or eight years a 

 pair of Ospreys have made their nest every year in a large swamp 

 called the Chutta bheel, situated in about the centre of Cachar. In 

 February, 1896, one of my collectors shot a fine male which was 

 fishing with its mate in a still larger piece of water further south ; 

 these and perhaps three or four others, seen but not obtained, are all 

 that I have come across within the district. 



The pair of Ospreys, which I have already mentioned as annually 

 breeding in the Chutta bheel, are practically resident birds, as I am 

 informed that they are repeatedly seen until the end of December or 

 beginning of January when the drying up of the water forces them to 

 make what is, probably, a local migration to some other place where 

 there is a suitable food-supply. The earliest rains commence in 

 Cachar in March or April and with their advent back come the birds 

 to their nest and set about repairs as soon as ever they arrive. The 

 site is a large solitary tree, standing on a small piece of high ground 

 which, when the rains are at their highest, is surrounded on all sides 

 by a vast sheet of water, dotted here and there where similar little 

 islands show their heads. 



The birds which are seen in the cold weather are, in all likelihood, 

 only casual visitors, though it is possible that one or two other eyries 

 exist in the less frequented backwaters of the Barak and Surrma rivers- 

 where, even in the driest seasons, there is always plenty of water 

 containing an inexhaustible quantity of fish. 



It is probable that Blanford has laid rather too much stress on the 

 outer toe of the Osprey being reversible. Col. Bingham, writing of 



