76 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY, 



While I gazed at the nest, the birds became more anxious and 

 screamed much louder. The birds became still more terrified when I 

 photographed the nest, and the female, who is larger and stronger than 

 the male, swooped down suddenly, as if to take me in its terrible talons 

 and carry me away, but luckily for me it turned out of my way a few 

 feet from my head. 



I noticed that the father bird was carrying a fish in his talons which 

 he undoubtedly intended to give to his little ones, but as he did not 

 care to let us see him give it to them, he told us as nearly as he could 

 in osprey language to go off his grounds and very likely called us tres- 

 passers. Although his proper name is American Osprey, he is more 

 frequently called fish hawk, for he makes his living by fishing and he 

 is an expert fisherman too. The Osprey looks quite like the bald eagle, 

 but can easily be distinguished by his different habits and his smaller 

 size. The osprey is from 22 to 23 inches in length. The upper parts 

 are of a brownish black and the nape and underparts are white. The 

 wings are very large and powerful and enable the birds to sail for a 

 long distance. This nest was about one quarter of a mile from the 

 sea, where the birds could easily get all the fish they needed for them- 

 selves and their little ones. They never left their young exposed to 

 danger; the mother stayed by the nest, while the father got fish enough 

 for his whole family. Very few male birds feed both mate and young 

 as the father osprey does. 



Much delighted with my new discovery, I started homeward, resolv- 

 ing to go again in a few days, to see what more of interest I could 

 learn about the Ospreys. 



A few days later, I started bright and early to see how my friends 

 the Ospreys were getting along. It was rather a cloudy day, but it did 

 not look as though it would rain. I went slowly along, stopping to 

 turn off the road now and then to go into the woods to see what strange 

 birds I might find. I had not gone far beyond when I perceived it was 

 beginning to rain, so I knocked at the door of the nearest farmhouse 

 to see if I could gain admittance until the shower was overr The 

 hostess gave me a cordial greeting and I got into the house just as it 

 began to rain in torrents. It rained "cats and dogs" as some people 

 say, but I could not find either cats nor dogs that had not been there 

 before the shower. However, I never saw more cats and kittens than 

 there were in that house and spent the whole of the fifteen minutes 

 playing with the whole families of kittens and asking questions about 

 them. It soon stopped raining, so I resumed my walk toward the 

 nest, thinking nothing about how wet the grass and trees would be. 

 As I proceeded, I saw plenty of chickadees, nuthatches, yellowthroats. 



