131 



THE OOLOQIST 



AN OSPREY THAT SWALLOWED 

 AN EAGLE 



In July 1920 an Osprey (pandion 

 haliaetus) was brought into our Cham- 

 ber of Commerce by the engineer in 

 charge of a large irrigation system 

 near here. For some weeks it had 

 been seen daily hunting over the lake. 

 As no birds of the species have been 

 known to nest within at least fifty 

 miles of the lake it was without a 

 doubt a long way from home. That 

 morning he found it perched on the 

 roof of a small chicken house in his 

 yard and fearing it might have some 

 sinister designs on his young chickens, 

 had picked up a stick and walked 

 towards it to drive it away. But it 

 would not fly as he expected, so he 

 struck it and knocked it off the perch 

 to the ground where it lay without 

 movement. Thinking he had killed it 

 he went forward to pick it up when 

 it jumped up and running and flutter- 

 ing, started down hill towards the 

 lake a few hundred feet away. Not 

 wishing a supposedly badly injured 

 bird to suffer, he rushed to the house 

 for his gun and shot it before it 

 reached the water, where it seemed to 

 be bound. Knowing that our Chamber 

 of Commerce is always on the lookout 

 for interesting attractions for our 

 rooms he decided to "clean" it and 

 bring it in to us. The "cleaning" was 

 a very thorough job as far as removing 

 the interior mechanism of the bird 

 went, and then it had been rolled in a 

 newspaper and tossed in the back of 

 the flivver for a six mile drive over a 

 rather rough road to town. The re- 

 sult can better be imagined than des- 

 cribed. 



A good two hours working finally 

 got the beautiful white underparts fair- 

 ly presentable. Most of the feathers 

 were dyed a deep red when it came to 



me and thoroughly dried. My would- 

 be taxidermist told me that the 

 stomach of the Osprey had been ab- 

 solutely empty but that he had found 

 in the "crop" an "Eagle," a ten dollar 

 gold piece, of the vintage of 1908, as 

 bright as if it had just come from the 

 mint. 



I suppose the most of us naturalists 

 and hunters and fishermen do not 

 often have to complain of the gold we 

 have to carry; but this poor fisher was 

 out of luck, for he was not able 

 either to digest it or, for some reason, 

 to eject it and it had in all probability 

 caused an obstruction that prevented 

 the pa'ssage of food to the stomach and 

 the bird when first seen was probably 

 weak and dopey from hunger, though 

 strangely enough, when I made the 

 skin I found it was not in the least 

 emaciated and apparently was in very 

 good condition. 



Many people who see the bird, now 

 occupying a case in our exhibition 

 room, ask me where he got it. I wish 

 I knew. Perhaps there might be good 

 hunting in that neighborhood. Gold 

 "Eagles" have been decidedly scarce 

 out here since Uncle Sam com- 

 mandeered the visible gold supply a 

 few years ago. 



We know where this one went all 

 right, for it was turned in to the 

 Chamber of Commerce for dues and 

 eventually for Uncle Sam 



All we have is the Osprey itself. It 

 bears a placard which is the affidavit 

 of the donor, duly certified to before a 

 notary, that the facts are as stated. 

 But in spite of that it is very hard to 

 make people believe, sometimes, that 

 it is not a mere "fish-hawk story" in- 

 stead of the fact that we know it to 

 be. 



C. S. Sharp, 



Escondido, Cal 



